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Walking through the woods after the sun has set, Celeste has always felt a certain thrill run through her. The long shadows and gnarled roots evoke the aura of the supernatural, of something dark and evil beyond human comprehension. Even in such mundane woods as these, barely a stone's throw from Hope's Peak, the same unsettling atmosphere that possessed the imaginations of so many classical gothic writers lives in the shadows. It is a place where a creature of the night such as herself should feel most at home.
However, the forest is also not easily traversed in heeled Mary Janes, Celeste is discovering. The nighttime breeze bites at her exposed shoulders, and she grits her teeth to suppress a complaint. Yes, overall she is rather poorly-outfitted for this endeavor; she's beginning to bitterly wonder what possessed her to agree to it.
In front of her walks Sayaka, disrupting the eerie ambience with a more suitable outfit for the weather: a pink track hoodie and black leggings. Of course it's more suitable. Sayaka knew they'd be going on an excursion into the woods. When Sayaka had asked her if she could meet tonight, however, a hike was not what she'd had in mind.
"I'm sorry for surprising you with a walk like this," Sayaka says, using that uncanny intuition of hers. She glances back over her shoulder apologetically. "Are you doing okay back there?"
The breeze picks up again, and Celeste involuntarily shudders. Perhaps a coat would have been wise, she admits to herself. Or a capelet and thicker bloomers, at the very least.
Sayaka stares at her, head tilted just slightly in concern. Celeste forces her body to freeze, and successfully halts her shivering through sheer force of will. She smiles back at Sayaka, pleasant, controlled, like nothing in the world is wrong and she is having a lovely time. Sayaka smiles back.
"I'm doing fine, but your concern is...appreciated."
"We're almost there," Sayaka says, voice bright against the oppressive night air. "It'll be worth it, I promise."
"Yes, I'm certain it will," Celeste lies. She has no reason to trust the word of any of her classmates--and this classmate, in particular, constantly evokes her suspicion.
Because they are not friends, Sayaka and her. They are classmates, who mingle in the same school together but otherwise live in different worlds. But her eyes are drawn to Sayaka frequently, she'll admit. She has a...magnetic presence. Proof of her Ultimate talent, no doubt. And there is a kinship there Celeste recognized long ago, between two liars putting on performances. Sayaka must recognize that kinship as well: sometimes, when Celeste is looking at her, their eyes meet, and Sayaka quickly looks away.
They are not friends, but at some point, Sayaka started...making conversation with her. Then she started inviting her places. Twice the invitations were to someplace innocuous within the school: lunch in the cafeteria, afternoon tea on the social sciences' balcony. Now, this third time, she's been invited to...she still doesn't even know where yet. And she cannot for the life of her understand why.
As Celeste muses, the trees part, and the narrow path opens up into a sprawling patch of moon-kissed meadow. Pretty in its own right, perhaps. But Celeste's eyes instinctively turn upward, and she's treated the whole of the night sky above them, a blanket of twinkling stars thicker than Celeste expected so this close to the city.
Sayaka walks a few feet in front of Celeste. She does a graceful little turn on one foot to face her, then spreads her arms wide.
"What do you think? Isn't it beautiful?"
Beautiful, yes--not in the way works of art and grand castles are beautiful, but beautiful in its own mundane sort of way. Celeste can't say it was worth the trip, however. Their school has an observatory; Celeste suspects they could've observed the stars much better from there, with the added benefit of internal heating.
"I suppose," she concedes, tone neutrally conciliatory. "Though I must admit, I'm still very unclear on why it is that we're here."
Sayaka holds her pose a moment longer. Then her arms drop, and she spins back around to face the sky again. Every step forward she takes is graceful, dainty, inhumanly perfect.
"I first found this place just a week or two after coming to Hope's Peak." Sayaka is still addressing the horizon, back turned to Celeste. "It feels like something out of a fairy tale, doesn't it? A secret grove, where the whole sky reveals itself..."
Celeste steps forward, until she's side-by-side with Sayaka.
"Perhaps I should rephrase my question," Celeste says. "Why is it that you chose to bring me here?"
Sayaka doesn't answer for a long moment. She's staring up to the sky, blue eyes dark and dull against the brilliance of the starry night. Celeste watches those eyes with rapt attention.
"...When I'm out here, and all the stars are out...sometimes it feels like I'm on a big stage." Sayaka's words are quiet, and her lips barely move as she speaks them. It's almost as though she isn't aware she's saying them. "But the stars aren't watching me. When I'm out here...nobody is. It's a place no one knows about...where I don't have to worry about anyone seeing me..."
"So you are saying I am nobody to you," Celeste says, with the hint of a joking tone, but she's probing. Testing. Perhaps from Sayaka's response, she can determine the true purpose of this meeting, and perhaps some of their other meetings as well.
Sayaka looks back at her, and not for the first time does Celeste find herself mildly unsettled by her gaze. She's played games with hardened criminals, with masters of deception and inference who could read novels out of the slightest wandering eye or twitch of a hand. These people did not frighten her. Sayaka, however...
"Is that what you really think?" Sayaka asks. Her pleasant smile, glossy and soft, feels like a shield.
What does she really think? Celeste thinks, in some ways, Sayaka is very transparent in her desires. Sayaka changes her face, her demeanor, her tone of voice for every single person she speaks to, playing to their desires with her subtle alterations--because she wants to be loved. Sayaka almost never makes plans with anyone, and often cancels the plans she does make for emergency practice sessions--because she wants to be successful. In the idol industry, these things are one and the same: success breeds adoration, and adoration breeds success. Sayaka is thus predictable in her pursuits; it is child's play for Celeste to guess why she does the things she does.
In other ways, Sayaka is a complete enigma. These meetings of theirs--they don't fit with Celeste's image of Sayaka as a single- and simple-minded girl wholly dedicated to her dream. They serve no purpose in advancing her career. They are a waste of time, at best, and a dangerous dalliance, at worst.
Agreeing to meet with Sayaka serves no purpose in helping Celeste achieve her goals, either. And yet she keeps showing up. It is vexing, this entire situation.
Celeste does not say any of this. Instead, she smiles, placid as a frozen lake.
"I think it would be very convenient for you to avoid me," she says. "I am somewhat of an...unsavory character, in some people's eyes. It wouldn't do for someone so reputable as yourself to be caught dealing with underworld gamblers."
Celeste brings her hand to her chin in thought, covering her mouth with a fan of sharp nails and even sharper rings.
"And yet, time and time again, we seem to find ourselves together like this. Perhaps some would say this is fate. And yet, I wonder...you wouldn't be plucking at fate's strings for some other motive, would you, Sayaka?"
Sayaka giggles, light and melodic, and Celeste abruptly feels like she has lost control over both the conversation and her heart rate.
"You have such a poetic way of speaking, Celeste." Sayaka toys with a strand of her long, indigo hair, playing at shyness. "It's one of the things I really like about you."
Sayaka is watching her. Waiting for something. No matter. Celeste meets her gaze, steely-eyed and impassive. She may have been caught off-guard for a moment, but such an obvious feint won't affect her.
"I am flattered to hear you say so, Sayaka. You truly have a charming way with people," Celeste says primly, tilting her head with an empty smile.
She is positive she does not imagine the brief look of disappointment on Sayaka's face.
"...I'm allowed to spend time with my classmates," Sayaka says, still smiling, always smiling. "And despite your Ultimate title, you're proper, beautiful...and most importantly, a girl."
Ah. It would be problematic for the Ultimate Pop Sensation to be seen sneaking off with a boy, Celeste supposes. Careers have been ruined over less. There's a good reason Sayaka, in spite of all her charms, has remained single the entirety of their time together at Hope's Peak.
"I think the only stories anyone could run about us would be about...our beautiful, unexpected friendship." Sayaka smiles, lifts her hand to her mouth, tilts her head in a perfect imitation of childlike enthusiasm. "Maybe my manager would arrange a photo op, if the story got big enough. My bubbly fashion and your elegant gothic clothing would complement each other well in a magazine cover, don't you think?"
Celeste looks Sayaka's pink track hoodie and tight leggings up and down. Flattering, but despairingly plain. She wrinkles her nose slightly at the supposition that their fashions are in any way comparable.
"Mhm, I see. And is that what you're hoping for? Publicity? " Celeste asks, with just a hint of mockery.
"No," Sayaka says, her smile fading. Then, in a voice just shy of a whisper: "Actually, I hope nobody ever finds out about this."
Sayaka steps closer, while Celeste is still busy processing what she's said. Before Celeste can address the more pressing matter of Sayaka's approach, Sayaka is already within inches of her, so close Celeste can smell the light, blueberry sweetness of her perfume. She can see every millimeter of Sayaka's porcelain-perfect skin, glowing ethereally in the moonlight. And for the first time, she can see the single nervous bead of sweat on her face, starting just by her left ear and trailing slowly down her temple. It's the only evidence that the girl before her is human, and not a beautiful, haunting doll.
And then Sayaka kisses her, a gentle but purposeful meeting of their lips. Sayaka's warmth spreads through Celeste's entire body, shielding her, however temporarily, from the cold night air. And then it is over, all too soon. Celeste stands stone-still, too shocked to respond. She merely meets Sayaka's eyes--blue, dark, strangely comforting--as Sayaka stares into hers.
Then Sayaka smiles, sharp and fragile as glass.
"No one will believe you if you tell them," Sayaka whispers, "Queen of Liars."
Celeste doesn't reply. She tightens her throat around the beginnings of words, but the air catches and stops before she can even make a sound. Even breathing feels like a conscious effort; every purposeful inhale and exhale brings more of Sayaka's scent into her lungs.
Then the edges of Sayaka's smile grow wider, but her pupils constrict. Her nails, nearly imperceptibly, dig into the folds of her skirt. Celeste has never seen such obvious tells--on lesser people, certainly, but not on the greatest performer she's ever met. Celeste is not speaking, and Sayaka is waiting for her to speak. Celeste is not speaking, and Sayaka is afraid.
She could kill Sayaka with a single breath, she realizes. An expression of disgust, a word of rebuttal, or even a poorly-acted lie, and she would slice the fly wires of Sayaka's leap of faith and send her falling, plummeting to Earth with no one to catch her. Her desperate gamble would come up empty, and saddle her with the debt of a potential career scandal. Celeste is no stranger to holding people's livelihoods in her hands, destroying their futures to ensure her own. It is an intoxicating, frightening feeling, one which she has only ever approached before with cold calculation.
"You are right," Celeste says, quietly. "Nobody would."
Sayaka's eyes widen in a brief moment of surprise. Then her smile softens, into something a weaker person might read as tender but which Celeste ascertains is relieved. A genuine expression, either way. Celeste would like to believe, against all odds, it's a smile she's never shown anyone else.
Quietly, Sayaka shrugs off her jacket, before pushing it into Celeste's arms.
"Please take care on your way home, Celeste," she murmurs. Then Sayaka steps past Celeste and she's gone, ephemeral and unreal as a daydream, leaving only the stars for company.
Celeste stares down at the jacket. It is ugly, overpriced streetwear, a poor fit for the aristocratic elegance of a woman such as herself. It smells very faintly of blueberries.
Celeste cradles the jacket carefully in her arms on her way back. When she gets home, she removes the pieces of her costume one by one--unclips her hair extensions, peels off layer after layer of clothes, wipes away her makeup, removes her contacts -- until she transforms from the grand noble Celestia Ludenberg to an ordinary, plain girl with a name hardly worth remembering. She showers, watching her brown eyes reflected in the drain.
Before she gets into bed, she slips into Sayaka's hoodie. She pulls the hood up, curls into herself under the sheets like a fragile child, and the aroma of vanilla and blueberries completely envelops her.
If Sayaka can indulge herself so dangerously, Celeste thinks, breathing slowly, deeply, surely I am allowed this much.