Chapter Text
They first met through Hifumi.
As a rule, Celeste didn’t spend much time in the art department. It wasn’t that she disliked art, but the likes of Hifumi, and Mioda from Class 77, had taught her that the kinds of artists who reached Hope’s-Peak-level renown tended to be cursed with an excess of creativity that took them in weird directions. She liked art that was beautiful, not interesting.
As such, she took no immediate interest in the Ultimate Artist in the class beneath her, nor was she curious to see such a student’s creations.
When Hifumi’s delighted references to his mentee (the kouhai assigned to him at the start of their second year) turned into delighted references to his “priestess”, his “oracle”, his “angel cake”, Celeste’s disinterest turned into a vague sense of morbid curiosity…which still didn’t move her any further in the direction of seeking out Yonaga’s company.
That happened by itself, when Angie Yonaga painted a deck of cards.
Gorgeous, they were. A standard deck of 52 playing cards. Every queen was Celeste, in a different cut of gown. Every king, fine-featured in that anonymous way most often seen in dolls and mannequins. The diamonds looked like jewels cut in rhombus shape. The hearts bled elegantly. Even the textures delighted her fingers. The layers of paint which could be felt even when she wore gloves.
The cards were a birthday gift from Hifumi. He’d commissioned them for her. She’d known at once that the art wasn’t his own; one couldn’t ask Hifumi to draw anything without him sticking in big bishi eyes or making something drool. This was art as Celeste knew it: beautiful.
Incidentally, this came at a time when the 78th class had gotten into the habit of visiting each other's rooms.
It was both a common joke and an understood truth, around the school, that their class was much too close. Hina and Sakura routinely slept in each other's beds, Mondo and Taka took baths together (was an understatement; in fact, as Celeste understood it, they never took baths apart), Junko was the queen of knocking on classmates' doors to ask banal school-related questions while dressed in just a camisole and sleep shorts...It was unclear which of them had dealt the definitive blow to their boundaries, but even Byakuya had reached the point where he only rolled his eyes before letting someone into his room, if they asked to talk.
Which meant Celeste's continued refusal to let her classmates visit her room was at this point a bit ostentatious. She didn't mind the aura of mystery it perhaps cultivated, but the real reason for her reluctance was that she just wasn't satisfied with the decor of her room.
Not letting people in was fine, but not being able to let people in, even if she wanted to, was...problematic.
So, she sought to commission a few paintings, for the walls.
She met Angie in the art room. The underclassman sat cross-legged on a stool, her paint-splattered hands folded daintily in the lap of her white ruffle skirt, her yellow smock sliding gradually off of one of her round shoulders, her curly, white hair falling in two ponytails down her back. Pale flecks of paint or clay speckled the brown skin of her cheeks, but none of it seemed to have made it onto the crochet halter top she wore beneath the smock.
She smiled as Celeste approached. Her nose crinkled. "Come sit, come sit! Angie is super excited to get started."
Celeste eyed the assortment of stools (also paint-splattered) and opted to stand. "Hifumi has already told me your price. I request three paintings, 18x24, uniformly framed. The aesthetic must be gothic. They can be landscapes. Perhaps castles, in the European style. Nothing with rain or beaches or ponds. There should not be sunlight. Perhaps trees, but nothing lush or flowery. No dogs. Foxes and wolves are tolerable, and cats are ideal- provided they're depicted in a dignified way. Spiderwebs are welcome, but not spiders themselves, as they are hideous creatures. Still life paintings are also agreeable, so long as they look tasteful and sophisticated. I am looking for elegance, not mundanity or vibrancy." She noticed that the artist hadn't moved to write anything down and was just blinking up at her with that same smile on her face. "Is all of that understood?"
Angie hummed affirmatively, her gaze drifting aside. "Nothing wet."
"And nothing too colorful, or mundane. I do hope you heard everything I said."
Now Angie giggled. "Hifumi said you liked the cards Angie painted. Do you know what he asked me for, when I made them?"
"What?"
"A deck of cards." Angie winked. "Celeste doesn't have to worry. God will tell me exactly what to paint, and you will love it."
Celeste really hoped she was being figurative. "If it is not what I asked for, then I'm afraid I will not pay for it."
The girl seemed unconcerned, as she digressed, "Oh! And there's one more thing we forgot."
"What's that?"
She put out her hand. "Hello! I'm Angie Yonaga."
The absurdity of ending with introductions almost got a laugh out of her. But Celeste just offered up a hand to shake. "Celestia Ludenberg." She would have added, You may call me Celeste, had Angie not already been doing just that. "I hope you didn't find my abruptness rude."
"Not rude at all," Angie replied, in a profusely soothing tone as if Celeste had just confessed to a deep insecurity. "I think Celeste-senpai was just scared of being misunderstood."
"Oh! Is that what you think?" Celeste affected a politely dismissive smile. "How interesting."
Unfortunately, she continued to think about Angie Yonaga for several minutes after leaving the art room, and again in sporadic bursts throughout the evening. The artist's carefree demeanor did not inspire confidence that she would take her task seriously, but more than that, the way she'd looked at her was so annoying. The way she'd smiled, unaffected by Celeste's exhaustive list of stipulations or her firm reminders. The breezy way she'd accused Celeste of being scared.
It left her with that irritating feeling of having come across wrong, having been interpreted incorrectly.
It was two weeks before she spoke to Angie again, and when she did, she was presented with three large canvases.
The first, a landscape of a dark and majestic castle...but in the foreground, a spiderweb, with tiny dewdrops littering each strand. Despite the immaculate detail of both elements, the castle seemed inconsequential, in comparison to the web, to the point where Celeste wondered whether the person viewing the painting was meant to be the spider.
The second, a bouquet of dead flowers, all wilting over one side of their vase, with peeling wallpaper in the background making it look as if the flowers were bleeding. A pale human hand entered the frame from the opposite side, either in the process of removing a single living flower from the vase, or of adding a single living flower to the vase.
And the third, the silhouettes of at least twenty cats perched in different positions around a dimly firelit parlor room. The room itself smacked of wealth and prestige, but its opulence meant nothing to the creatures laying claim to it: the chandelier, the fine loveseats, the well-decorated tables, were all perches and beds for cats.
Absurd. Each piece carried an element of absurdity.
...Gorgeous, they were.
Celeste was unable to summon up an 'I suppose that will do...' or even a 'Very good. Thank you.' No, she was marveling.
Marveling...
This was bad. She was marveling.
She needed to stop marveling.
She pulled her gaze away, forcing herself to focus on her little purse, as she paid Angie what she was owed. When she felt ready to speak, she said, "Well, that..." She primly cleared her throat. "That suffices, I'm sure."
"Is that all?" Angie pouted. "If Celeste isn't happy with the paintings, you don't have to take them."
"They suffice...very well, thank you. I'm quite pleased with them."
And her smile was back. "Okie-dokie! If Celeste is happy, then I'm happy." She finally accepted her money.
Celeste was able to end the interaction by calling Hifumi to bring her purchased art to the dorms for her. When she left the art room in his wake, she couldn't help glancing back at Angie.
If she'd expected her to still be looking at her and smiling, her expectations were proven wrong; Angie's back was turned, and she was slathering paint across a formerly-blank canvas with her bare fingers while her other hand held a dry paintbrush aloft in an oddly meditative pose. She seemed completely lost in the work, as if her completed business with Celeste meant nothing at all to her.
Which was just as well, because it meant nothing at all to Celeste, either.
She just had some paintings to hang in her room.
That was it.