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Varka is a little cursed.
You see, on the first day of his generic office job, he walked into the only elevator of the building thinking it would take him all the way to the nineteenth floor, where his office was. Nobody else was in the elevator— he thought it strange at the time, but in hindsight it was a blessing. For as soon as the elevator tried to go up, it stopped midway between floors three and four, and refused to budge until the technicians were called.
“I have no idea what happened!” yelled the head engineer, a tiny pink-haired child named Aino. “This elevator was in fine working condition! All its parts were new and functioning just a week ago, and now they’re damaged for no reason!” She turned to Varka then, and pointed at him. “You might be cursed, old man!”
If it wasn’t for being called “old man”, Varka might have paid more attention to being referred to as “cursed”. For the next few days, whenever he used that elevator, it plunged downwards into the basement and stayed there until Aino returned with her team to fix it. It reached the point where Aino was returning to the office just to fix the elevator that “the stupid big guy keeps breaking”, and so subsequently banned him from using it.
“How do you expect me to go up and down eighteen flights of stairs every day?” Varka demanded after Aino’s assistant, Ineffa, dropped that bombshell.
“Think of it this way,” she said, her voice so monotone and unchanging she could easily be mistaken for being a robot. “It is free exercise, and so you will develop a healthy heart and muscular legs.”
“But that’s not the point?”
“Additionally, you still have your job. They haven’t fired you despite the expenses for fixing the elevator.”
That was enough to shut Varka up, and he resorted to climbing the stairs every day. It was difficult for the first few weeks, with Varka feeling as though he might collapse from the strain. But he persisted, and after the first year, he developed muscles that became the envy of many of his colleagues.
“Varka,” Illuga said, staring open-mouthed at his legs one time while they were on lunch break. “How are your legs so jacked?”
“What?” Varka glanced down. His muscles were bulging in his pants, threatening to burst the seams. “Jacked?”
“That’s the modern term for being very muscly,” Flins said from the cubicle next to him.
“I see,” Varka said, making a mental note to look it up later.
“No, really, what is your secret?” Lohen demanded, peering over Illuga’s shoulder. His gaze looked almost hungry as he stared at Varka’s legs, like they were chicken drumsticks.
“I just walk up the stairs every day.”
Illuga and Lohen stared at him, then at each other, then back at him.
“Come again?” Illuga asked.
Lohen guffawed. “All eighteen flights of stairs? Why would you do that if we have an elevator?”
Varka’s first impression of Lohen was him cursing out the broken elevator and threatening to murder whoever had broken it, all while sharply snapping his stapler with one hand.
“To make my legs super jacked,” Varka said, slapping his thigh.
“Illuga, you should start doing that,” Flins said with a bright smile.
Illuga flushed bright red. “Why?”
“No particular reason.”
Lohen leaned in even closer to Varka’s thighs, so close it almost looked like he was trying to kiss them. “Maybe I should start climbing up the stairs every day as well.”
Before Varka could ask him to back up and stop eyeing his thighs, their boss yelled at them to get back to work.
So anyway, that’s Varka’s life now. Take the metro, climb up eighteen flights of stairs to his office where he would spend eight hours of his day, before heading home, heat leftovers for dinner, and sleep until morning. Simple and routine, and Varka is content.
Until one day, he bumps into a blonde lady bearing a white beret.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Miss,” Varka apologizes, kneeling to collect the papers that scattered during their collision. “Are you quite alright?”
He takes a good look at the lady he so rudely bumped into, and freezes. He can’t look away from her, from her beauty. She’s making hand gestures, perhaps to get his attention, but Varka can’t compute them. He just can’t stop staring at her.
“Nicole!”
Varka is snapped out of his reverie as the woman grabs the rest of the papers from his hands and runs towards where her name was being called. He turns to see her disappear into the elevator, amidst a mass of people. He doesn’t move until he feels a hand on his shoulder and sees Illuga staring at him with concern.
“You alright, Varka?” Illuga asks.
“Yeah, of course.” Varka clears his throat and makes a beeline for the stairs. “I’ll see you upstairs!”
“Are you sure you don’t want to use the elevator this once—?”
“Farewell!” Varka slams the stair doors shut and sprints up the steps, arriving in his office cubicle before the elevator even reaches their floor.
The woman— Nicole, Varka reminds himself— occupies his mind for the next few days. While he’s brushing his teeth, while he’s shoving pancakes into his mouth, while he’s riding the metro, while he’s walking the street to his building, while he’s climbing up the eighteen flights of stairs, while he’s sitting on his cubicle, while he’s heading home, while he’s preparing to go to bed— well, you get the gist.
He’s seen her a few times as he’s entering the building for work. But every time he tries approaching her, she’s speaking to somebody else, and by the time she’s finished, she’s already making a beeline for the elevator and disappearing into the throng of people.
“You look rather gloomy today, Varka,” Flins says, watching Varka bury his head into the table of his cubicle after the third week of not being able to speak to Nicole.
“I’m mourning my poor luck.”
“And why is that?”
Varka tells him about Nicole, how he might be in love, and how he’s too terrified about entering elevators to go in and join her. Flins tsks him when Varka finishes his story.
“You should learn how to overcome your fear of elevators, Varka,” Flins says.
Varka frowns. “That’s not what I—”
“This seems to be the only way you can talk to her.”
“Is there no other way? Like, can’t you help me find out what floor she’s on?”
“I am not a stalker. I cannot do such a thing.”
Curse Flins and his gentlemanly tendencies. Varka slams his head against his desk, hard enough that he could hear Illuga yelp from the other side of the office.
“Come on, Varka,” Flins says, placing his hand on his shoulder. “Would you really let your fear of elevators bar you from meeting the love of your life?”
It’s too soon to determine whether this woman is the love of his life, but Flins’s words echo in his mind as he prepares to go to bed. It has been a year and a couple of months since he’s used the elevator, after all. Perhaps the curse had worn off, and whatever misfortune he’d been plagued with was no longer in effect.
It’s settled, then. Varka will ride the elevator with Nicole, so that he’ll finally have an opportunity to speak to her.
The next day, Varka scans the lobby for any signs of Aino or Ineffa. He’s only seen them once or twice for the yearly elevator inspections, and the one time Aino spotted him, she’d yelled, “Hey, old man! You haven’t been riding this elevator without our knowledge, have you?”
Varka gulps. He’s going to regret this. He’s going to break the elevator again, and he’s going to get fired, even though he’s on track to receive a promotion, and then he’s never going to find Nicole or talk to her, ever—
Someone taps his shoulder.
Varka whips around and nearly smacks Nicole across the face, but she was quicker. She grabs his wrist in time and sets it down, blinking inquisitively at him.
“S-sorry,” he stammers, unable to coincide the woman in his thoughts with the one standing before him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was— I was deep in thought—”
Nicole lifts her wrists and executes a series of signs in succession. Varka stares at her blankly.
“Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry. I don’t… I am unfamiliar with sign language.”
Nicole performs a waving gesture and bears an expression that seems to be assuring him. Varka blinks.
“I apologize if this is a rude question, but… are you deaf? Or mute?”
She spells out the letters M-U-T-E with one hand. She’s smiling, which makes Varka feel like his face is on fire.
“I— I see,” he says. “Well—”
He’s interrupted by the sudden wave of employees who burst out of the elevator doors, drowning anything he planned to tell her. Varka sticks his hand out of the sea of heads like he’s trying to find refuge, and feels a hand clasp itself around his wrist and drag him into the elevator. He looks up to his savior, and finds Nicole standing next to him holding out her phone, the words are you okay written in the center of her notes app.
Varka nods as quickly as he can, too busy staring with horror as the doors to the elevator close.
His eyes are immediately fixed on the numbers above the floor buttons. The highest he’s ever reached in this elevator was the fourth floor. Everything moved in slow motion as the numbers slowly increased in value.
The elevator stops all of a sudden, and for a heart-stopping moment, Varka thought the elevator had stopped working. But the doors to the elevator opened smoothly, and a couple of employees stepped out to the second floor. Varka waits, his entire body tensing, as the elevator slowly grumbles upward. He nearly jumps when it stops again. Yet again, two more employees stepped out to the third floor without a problem. The doors close, and they continue ascending to the higher floors.
Varka inhales, trying to calm himself down. It’s okay. Everything is going to be fine. He watches the numbers increase (five, seven, ten) and wonders if the elevator is shakier than usual. Does it always make this weird grinding sound whenever it ascends? Or is he imagining things?
He feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns to see Nicole staring up at him curiously, with a hint of concern. She types into her phone and shows him her screen.
Are you sure you’re alright?
“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” he assures her. He continues to steal glances at the rising numbers.
As they pass the sixteenth floor, Varka wonders if perhaps his curse had actually disappeared. Everyone else in the elevator didn’t seem concerned about whether it would jam or fall several floors down and kill them all. He allows himself to relax and steal a glance at Nicole, who is still looking at him like he might pass out.
“I’m okay,” he clarifies. “I just get nervous in elevators sometimes.”
That’s natural, reads the text on Nicole’s notes app.
The elevator arrives at the nineteenth floor. Varka can see Flins, Illuga, and Lohen’s heads slightly above their cubicles, but he’s more focused on Nicole standing beside him, looking at him expectantly. She hasn’t made a move to leave the elevator yet.
There are two wolves inside Varka. One insists he depart for his office now, having pushed his luck thus far. There’s no reason to stay in the elevator any longer and risk endangering Nicole and everyone else in it. He’s already talked to her— he can always speak to her some other time.
But the other insists he stays. Perhaps his curse is gone after all. How would he know that if he didn’t follow Nicole up to where her office was, and take the opportunity to speak to her for longer? This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and he shouldn’t squander it because of his doubts.
Varka watches as the elevator doors close, sealing him from the nineteenth floor.
“Where are you headed?” He asks Nicole, keeping an eye on the floor numbers.
28, Nicole writes.
Varka nearly chokes over his spit. “Isn’t that… the highest floor of the building?”
The elevator dings and opens its doors to floor twenty. Nicole types rapidly.
They ran out of space for me in the lower floors, which is why they assigned me up there.
“Ah, I see,” Varka says, although he in fact does not see, because he had noted that the doors of the elevator had shut once again, and it is just the two of them inside now.
The elevator creaks as it ascends even higher up. Nicole taps Varka’s shoulder again.
Is your office also on the top floor?
“Not really,” Varka says, feeling sweat start to drip from his face. “You see, I—”
The lights flicker as the elevator rocks back and forth. Nicole jumps and on instinct Varka’s arms shoot forward and wrap themselves around her shoulders. He pulls her close as he eyes the elevator’s flashing lights in horror, realizing what he had been dreading the whole ride.
“It’s stuck,” he says with the gravity of someone who understands the true weight of their action.
He feels a hot breath on his neck. Varka glances down to see Nicole’s eyes wide and her breathing rapidly increasing.
“I’m sorry,” Varka says, pulling himself away. “That was rude—”
Nicole grabs his arm and buries her face into his chest. If Varka’s mind wasn’t occupied with figuring out solutions on how to get them out of the elevator, he probably would have spent six minutes committing this contact to memory.
He clears his throat and presses the emergency call button on the panel. It takes three seconds to ring before someone picks up.
“Hello?” calls an unfortunately familiar, child-like voice.
Varka closes his eyes and groans. If Aino were to know he was in here—
“Hello? What’s going on?”
He feels Nicole trembling against him. Varka sighs.
“Hi, Aino,” Varka says. “It’s—”
“YOU!” She bellows so loudly that Varka could have sworn the elevator shook from the volume. “This is the emergency call for the office elevator. Why, for krumkake’s sake, am I hearing your voice through here?”
“Well, you see, Aino, that’s because—”
Aino sighs dramatically, sending crackles through the intercom. “You know what, I don’t even want to know. Try not to die while I’m trying to rescue you, please.”
“Thank you!” Varka calls, as the line fell silent.
There’s an incessant tapping on his knee. He looks down to see Nicole staring at him with a very confused expression. Varka debates lying to her about Aino’s reaction, but then realizes that probably wouldn’t be the right choice. He mentally bids farewell to any chance he had of asking her out.
“I apologize,” he says. “I’m— I have a little curse, you see. During my first week at the office, I kept breaking the elevator.”
Nicole blinks. She types on her phone. How?
“I don’t even know! It’s a terrible coincidence. Every time I’m on it, it malfunctions.” Varka slides down the elevator wall and falls to the floor, burying his head into his knees. “This is my fault. I thought since it’s been a while since I’ve been on the elevator, the curse would have worn off.”
Why did you do it?
Varka places his hands on his cheeks, hiding them from her. “I wanted to talk to you. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.”
Silence fills the trapped space, with only the occasional creaking sound. Varka hears shuffling next to him. He braves a glance to see Nicole seated cross-legged next to him, looking at him with flushed cheeks.
Are you interested in me?
Varka feels himself turn even redder than the tomatoes Illuga brings for lunch. “I— Yes. I wanted to— I wanted to ask you out. For dinner. Sometimes.”
His sanity is slipping away from him. This is definitely not how he planned to ask her out. Not in an elevator precariously trapped more than twenty floors in the air, at risk of dropping them down at a deadly speed. He closes his eyes and sighs heavily.
Nicole nudges him again. When Varka opens his eyes, he finds himself face-to-face with her phone, opened to an empty contact. He glances at her, but she’s avoiding his gaze.
“What do you want me to do?” Varka asks.
Nicole snatches her phone back, types maddeningly into her notes app, and practically tosses the phone at Varka.
I remember bumping into you that day. I thought you were cute, too. I would like your name and your number, so we can set up a time and place for the date.
Varka’s heart is threatening to jump out of his throat and onto the floor. “R-really? You’re willing?”
Nicole passes the phone back to him, with the blank contact open again. She’s grown a shade redder than even Illuga’s tomatoes.
“My name’s Varka, by the way,” he tells her as he passes her phone back, phone number and legal name in it and all.
It’s nice to meet you, Varka.
The elevator jerks. Nicole grabs Varka’s hand as the doors to the elevator swing open, and they are face-to-face with a disapproving-looking engineer and her stone-faced assistant.
“I’m going to submit a request to have you banned from being within five feet of any elevator doors in this building from now on,” Aino informs Varka as Ineffa carries them out of the elevator, boasting strength far surpassing the might advertised by the size of Varka’s legs.
“I will never do it again,” Varka promises. “I swear to Barbatos.”
“The stairs do a good job for your physique,” Ineffa says, gesturing to his legs. Her expression doesn’t change as she says this.
“Thanks?” He asks. He turns to Nicole, hoping to gauge her reaction, but she’s pink-faced and looking everywhere but him. He glanced down at his legs and wondered if climbing the stairs every day had done him some good after all.
Varka follows Nicole to the stairs. He glances at the floor they’re on: they’ve fallen back to the nineteenth floor.
“Nicole, wait,” Varka says. “I’ll carry you up the stairs.”
Her eyes widen as he kneels in front of her. She shakes her head fervently, but Varka pats his legs.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been climbing eighteen flights of stairs every day since I started working here. An extra eight isn’t going to hurt me.”
Nicole stares at him, transfixed. Varka turns away to hide his burning face and kneels in front of her.
“I’ll carry you on my back. Come on.”
She tentatively places her hands on his shoulders, and he hooks his arms under her thighs. He lifts her and climbs the eight flights of stairs without much difficulty, and sets Nicole down as gently as he can.
“So, about that date,” Varka begins, before Nicole leaves.
Nicole turns to him with her notes app already open. This weekend?
Varka nods eagerly. “I’ll text you the time and place.”
She grins at him before walking into her office. Varka stares after her and wonders if his tendency of getting elevator-stuck might have done him some good after all.