Chihiro finished double checking the program. He'd just finished it earlier that morning, and he thought it would be for the best if he checked it one more time before he went to meet Celestia. All the code looked like it was in order, and the trials he'd run had been successes, so he closed his laptop and headed out.

As he exited the Academy, he pulled out his significantly modified smartphone. Alter Ego's face popped up. "You need directions, Master?"

"No, I've seen the cafe before. Just haven't been inside before."

"Well, I hope you have fun!" Alter Ego winked. Before Chihiro could retort, he just giggled, and said "Just kidding, Master. I'll power off while you two have your date."

"It's not a date!" Chihiro insisted, but the screen had gone black. He sighed. At least the little shipper would stay quiet during his not-a-date.

Eventually, he noticed the cafe. A solitary building a little away from the sidewalk. There was a walkway up to the entrance. As he entered, Chihiro was stunned.

It was as though Chihiro had left the modern world and entered a Victorian mansion. Inside was a dimly lit, atmospheric, classy interior. It was predominantly lit with candles, but it was enjoyably cool. There were some tables surrounded by chairs, but there were mostly booths which provided a large amount of privacy. Behind the counter, there was a chalkboard with the words Le Joueur written in beautiful calligraphy on it. Below it, there was a list of fancy-sounding drinks. However, it didn't really seem pretentious. Chihiro could tell from the feeling the building left him with, that the drinks were exactly as good as their names suggested. He was still taking in the elegant, foreign atmosphere, when a voice called out to him.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle." It came from the man behind the counter. He wore a white button-up with a black bow-tie and dress pants. Between his bright, shoulder length blond hair, his brilliant blue eyes, and his accent, it was clear he was a foreigner. "Bienvenue aux ma cafe!"

Chihiro didn't really understand anything other than 'cafe', so he just nodded and said, "Th-thanks?"

The man smiled gently. "Ah, my apologies. I sometimes forget that not everyone speaks my native tongue. What can I get for you, ma chere?"

"Oh, I was just meeting a friend here. Have you noticed her around?"

"The lady in the lovely petticoat?"

"Y-yeah. She's here?"

"Oui. She is a regular here. Since you are her friend, and as this is your first visit, I shall offer your drink on the house. Do you have a preference?"

Chihiro just shook his head.

"Of course, I shall just get you the same as your date. She is over in that booth." He made a grand gesture.

"We're not…" Chihiro started to protest, but then just gave up.

"Of course you are not. Not to worry, except for bringing you your drinks, I shall leave the two of you well alone. Just call if you need anything." He winked, and waved Chihiro off to the booth.

"Ah, Chihiro. Welcome." Celestia smiled genially and waved. Chihiro was kind of blown away. While the gambler's outfit was tremendously out of place in almost every environment, she was dressed incredibly appropriately here. She was no longer a high school student in the modern era, but a great lady, a member of the highest nobility. "Do sit down." She motioned to the other side of the booth. Chihiro obliged.

"H-hi, Celestia." Chihiro stammered. His legs didn't quite reach the ground in this chair, so his legs awkwardly swung as he tried to generate a conversation.

"How is the program coming along, Chihiro?" Celestia saved Chihiro from having to come up with a topic by himself.

"Oh, it's essentially finished. I'd just have to see the program play against a professional like you. I've lost almost every time, but I don't know how you'd do against it."

"Well, why don't we find out?"

"Uh… sure! I'll just get it started." Chihiro opened his laptop. He typed in a few pieces of code, and the program started up. He turned the laptop to Celeste. As it loaded, a virtual casino showed up, and the point of view made it appear as though the player (Celeste in this case) was seated at a poker table, with a well-dressed dealer, and a 'select # of players' menu.

"Chihiro, this is… beautiful!" Celeste was quite impressed.

Chihiro just shrugged and put a hand behind his head. "This much isn't even that great. There's a whole bunch of open-source poker simulators that I drew inspiration from. Simulating the actual game and graphics isn't the difficulty, it's the other players' AI that's the tough bit."

"Fascinating." Celeste was engrossed by the game. She selected 'two player' on the menu, and it went to a loading screen.

"Sorry about all the loading. The AI was pretty complex for this, because it had to be as lifelike as possible." Chihiro said. "And designing the other players was tough. Ryota Mitarai from the 77th class helped out animating them. Hopefully it all worked out pretty well. But I won't know how it turned out until you test it."

Celeste thought for a moment. "But it is not the same without something to bet on. And since I'm playing against a computer, shall the two of us do the betting?"

"...Okay." Chihiro said. "But I don't really have much money. Do you have any ideas?"

"I'm not sure. But this is your creation, so you can decide what we bet with."

"Alright." Chihiro thought about it for a moment. He really wanted to get to know Celeste better, so… "How about questions? Depending on who wins each round, the loser has to answer any question. Ideally, with the truth. How does that sound, Celestia?"

Celeste paused. She twirled her hair with her finger. "Alright." She said, after a long period. "But be prepared to answer quite a few questions. I don't lose easily."

However, Chihiro's programming won the first round. "I always take a few rounds' loss at first." Celeste explained. "It allows me to take better stock of my opponent's skills."

"Of course." Chihiro humoured her. Maybe she was telling the truth, as he had managed a round against her back in the rec room, but he liked to entertain the idea that he had managed to beat her through his program.

"So, what would you like to know?" Celeste asked.

Chihiro tapped a finger against his chin as he thought. He'd have to ask something semi-personal, but not creepily intimate. Something he'd be interested in knowing, but if she questioned him about it, it would have to be something he could laugh off. "How about… what is one of your habits?"

Celeste smiled the way she tended to when collecting on a bet. "Very well. I have something of a habit of classifying the people around me with 'ranks'. The system is rather simple. Most individuals are D ranks: while they do not particularly interest me, I find no particular issue with them. They bore me, but are not offensive to me. F ranks are utterly deplorable. I consider the C ranks to be rather interesting, enough so that they may be considered 'knights' in servitude to me. B rank is above C and A rank is highest of all."

"Well, what rank am I, Celeste?"

"That… will have to wait until you manage to beat me in another round. Good luck with that." Celestia said. Chihiro blinked. Had he seen the faintest of blushes underneath all of Celeste's pale foundation? No, no, certainly not. Why would she be blushing over something like that? He shrugged.

"Alright. Let's play again, then." Chihiro was not so lucky the next round. It appeared that Celestia had decided to start playing for keeps.

"Oh, dear. It looks like I win." She laced her hands together. "Now it's time for you to answer one of my questions."

"Sure, Celeste. What would you like to know?"

"When did you start programming? You are quite good at it, and it just seems like programming is more of a… male thing."

"Ah." He tried as hard as he could to keep the cringing internal. "S-sorry, Celeste. You probably think I'm really weird, don't you..." He looked at the ground. What am I apologizing for? I AM male. What is wrong with that?

"Oh, no. That is not at all what I meant, Chihiro. I find no issue with it. But I was curious why you would… choose to defy gender roles like that. I suppose that was the essence of my question. Apologies."

Chihiro took a deep breath, and began. "Well, when I was a kid, I was kind of a sickly kid. Just weak and frail, you know? And nobody else really liked me much back then. Not that much has changed since then… Anyway, that kind of kept me from playing around outside with the other kids. So I stayed inside. I guess I just started messing around on my dad's computer one day. I didn't plan to start programming anything, but the coding language came so naturally to me. It's like I was born fluent in Java. Anyway, I just played with the coding until I had made a simple information retrieval system which utilized voice input. I guess that's when it started."

"Fascinating, Chihiro. But I do not like the way you keep putting yourself down. I do not know how you were in the past, but presently, you are among the most… interesting people I have met. And you do not seem weak to me. The abilities you have displayed to me are not frail. Even if you can not best me in games of chance, this program you have created is quite well crafted."

"Okay… thanks." Coming from most other people, being called 'interesting' might not have had as much of an impact on Chihiro. But when Celeste said that, he could tell it meant so much more. For Celeste to find me interesting… that must be quite a compliment! He felt a heat rise in his cheeks, and tried to change the subject. "Enough about me, Celeste. How about-"

"Ahem." A tall gentleman interrupted their dialogue. "So sorry to intrude, but I've brought your tea for you."

"Ah, thank you." Celeste said, taking her tea cup.

"Please, enjoy." the waiter said, and left.

Chihiro took a sip of his tea. It really was some of the best tea he'd ever had. But as nice as the tea and the waiter were, the interruption had nonetheless broken the flow of the conversation. "What were we just talking about?" Chihiro asked.

"I really am not quite sure." Celeste answered. There was a silence. Not too long, but long enough for Chihiro to start feeling awkward. So it really wasn't actually that long.

"Er… want to play again?" Chihiro asked.

"To be frank, I'd actually rather just take the program home and experiment with it. While we are here together, let us engage each other. You fascinate me." She took a delicate sip of her tea.

"Sure, Celeste." Chihiro panicked internally. How do you talk to people without a simple question-answer system? I don't know how socializing works! His mind went to the first thing he saw. "So, you like the tea here?" He almost immediately cringed. Agh, of course she likes the tea here, otherwise she wouldn't drink it!

"Of course I do. Otherwise I wouldn't drink it." Chihiro died a little inside. "You see, they are the only ones that can make it to my standard." Celeste's eyes darkened. "It's a shame about all the other places which advertise royal milk tea, but in reality can not even create swill fit for the pigs." Then she smiled again. "That's why I drink here. The tea is good, and the atmosphere is divine."

"Okay…" Chihiro really had no idea how to progress the conversation. Fortunately, Celeste rescued him.

"So Chihiro, what do you spend your time doing? Outside of schoolwork that is. You hardly go out, what is so enthralling about the inside of your dorm room?"

Chihiro latched onto the conversational life raft she had thrown him. Even though he didn't like talking about himself too much, it was fair. If he wanted to get to know Celeste better, it made sense that she would get to know him better. "Well, I've been working on this project for a while. It's kind of linked with virtual reality and stuff. I've been working with Miaya Gekkogahara and Yasuke Matsuda on it. They're the Ultimate Therapist and Neurologist, in case you didn't know. It essentially creates a fully immersive virtual reality experience. I do the programming, they sort through getting the user's brain fully engaged in it. Anyway, it's been super fun working with them, and I really hope it's useful when it's finished. That's mostly what I've been up to recently."

Celeste was quiet for a moment. "Chihiro, you must be tremendously good to pull that off."

Chihiro flushed. "Ah… I guess I am called the ultimate programmer… But I'm not the only Ultimate here, Celeste. What's something you've accomplished?"

"I once played a game with my very life on the line. It was in a rich old man's mansion. We played a variant of mahjong, I believe we used glass tiles. Regardless, I played the old man and this young boy with silver hair. They were supposedly legendary at the game, and I defeated them both, and escaped with my life."

Chihiro's jaw dropped. "That's… that's amazing! To think you have enough confidence to put your own life on the line in a game of chance! That's amazing!"

"It's not chance when you're certain of your victory. I did not play around with them. I went straight for the metaphorical kill." She went to take a sip from her teacup, and found it empty. "Oh. It seems I've finished my beverage."

Chihiro looked down at his. "Me, too. Wow, I totally get what you mean. That was a great drink."

"That's why I come here." Celeste smiled. "But, seeing as we're finished our drinks, and to be honest, our conversation is stagnating, let us just call an end to this gathering of ours."

Chihiro had mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it meant he didn't have to try to sustain a conversation anymore. That was always a bonus. But on the downside, it meant he wouldn't be able to be with Celestia anymore. But, what the Queen of Liars wants, the Queen of Liars gets. "Sure, Celeste. I'll see you later." He pulled out a USB drive and held it in front of Celestia. "This has a copy of the program. You know, in case you want to practice at home."

"Thank you, Chihiro. I'll do that." She went to take the drive. Once again, when their hands touched, the nerves in Chihiro's hand lit up. Chihiro panicked.

"Okay Celestia, I'll see you later, goodbye!" Chihiro grabbed his laptop. Then he kind of dashed off. Not really the most tactful of exits, but Chihiro wasn't really the most tactful of people.

Chihiro was something of a mess when he got back to his room. Exhausted from the prolonged social interaction, and totally disheveled from his power walk back to his dorm. He'd wanted to run home, but running wasn't really his thing. Alter Ego booted up on his desktop and greeted him. "Hi, Master! How did the date go?"

Chihiro sighed. "I don't know, Alter Ego." He collapsed onto his bed. "I mean, we talked for awhile, and she didn't seem put off by me. And it was great talking with her, but I just didn't know what to do. I'm so terrible at socializing."

"I see." Alter Ego nodded. "So you're thoroughly twitterpated, then?"

"I guess? I'm not sure. Alter Ego, do I look like the sort of person who is good at socializing?"

"No."

Chihiro groaned. "It was a rhetorical question, come on!"

"How do I know when a question is rhetorical? You should tell me that it's rhetorical before you ask it next time."

"Do people usually tell the other person that they're asking a rhetorical question?"

"I don't know, master-"

"That was another rhetorical question. Jeez…" Chihiro took a deep breath. "Sorry for getting so frustrated, Alter Ego. I just don't know what to do about Celeste. I've never had a crush like this before."

"I can produce a flow chart, if you want."

"A flow chart."

"Yeah, check it out!" A flow chart appeared on the screen. "If you confess your feelings for her, she could either like you back romantically, or not. If she does, great! If not, she either likes you back as a friend, or not. If she does, that's almost as good: you can still be friends with her. If she doesn't like you back as a friend, then it'll go back to how it was before you hung out with her at the rec room, and she'll be indifferent to you. You weren't miserable then, so you won't be miserable after finding out. And no matter which answer it is, you'll at least know for certain how she feels, and that'll be a load off your mind." Alter Ego smiled. "Did that help?"

Chihiro murmured a quiet "No, not really," before he just let out a small "blegh."

"Are you alright, Master?"

"I'm not, Alter Ego. I'm lovesick."

Alter Ego used his tact processor to wait an appropriate amount of time before he stated, "Told you so." After an enormous eye roll from his programmer, he said, "It's jokes, Master. I'll leave you alone for a bit."

"Thanks." Chihiro lay on the bed for a moment. He thought to himself, I need a nap. So he just closed his eyes and started to drowse for a while. He wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep when he was suddenly awakened by a loud knocking at his door.

"CHIHIROOOOOOO!" The girlish, bubbly voice pierced through the wall. "LET ME IIIIIIIIIN!"

Chihiro fumbled his way out of bed. "Coming!" he responded. He rushed to the door and opened it. "Asahina?"

"Hi, Chihiro!" She bounced.

"What can I do for you, Asahina?"

"I'm boooooored, Chihiro."

"That's a shame."

"Soooo, I came up with a great plan."

"Okay, what is it?"

"Girl's night! I'm hosting a sleepover for all the girls in our class!"

"And?"

"So you're invited, silly!"

Chihiro screamed internally. He was kind of trapped. If he refused to go, he'd let down Asahina and make himself look suspicious. If he went, he'd have to spend a whole night in constant social contact. Beyond that, it would be prolonged socialization with a gaggle of teenage girls in pajamas, intoxicated on sugar and fatigue. Chihiro was sure it would be a dream come true for some (a certain Ultimate Chef came to mind), but to him it was quite the intimidating endeavour. He started constructing a pro-con chart in his head. "All the girls in class will be there?"

"Yeah. It'd be mean if I didn't invite everyone. So Sakura's gonna be there (obviously, she practically lives in my dorm) and Sayaka, and Touko, and Junko, and Mukuro, and Kyoko, and even Celestia!" Asahina stopped for a moment. "Oh, and me. And you too. But that kind of goes without saying, right?"

"Yeah, totally." Chihiro's heart did a jig. Celeste would be there. He was bothered at how quickly he had kind of fallen in love with her. The pro-con chart disappeared. "Yeah, I'll be there."

"Actually? Chihiro, that's so awesome!" Asahina trapped Chihiro in a strong embrace. Beyond the usual feeling of being uncomfortable Chihiro associated with most physical contact there was another layer here. This is because Asahina was kind of suffocating Chihiro with her chest.

"Asahina! I can't breathe!" Chihiro said. Actually, that's just what he tried to say. What actually came out of his mouth was, "Mffhmmhnm! Mmm phnt brfff!"

"Oh, sorry Chi!" Asahina relinquished her grip, and Chihiro gasped for air.

"No problem, Asahina…" Chihiro said. "When is it?"

"Oh, you guys can just come over after dinner. Now, I have to go invite everyone else!" Then Asahina bounded off to whoever's dorm she was going to assault next.

Chihiro shook his head. What had he gotten himself into? At least it's still the weekend. I'll have Sunday to recover from this all-nighter. Besides, he'd pulled off plenty of all-nighters before, to finish up programs at the last minute. How different could it be with all those girls present?

He looked at his phone. 3:00 pm. Dinner started at 5:30. Time to start packing. He was a minimalist in this regard. He picked up a small overnight bag, and threw in his toothbrush and toothpaste, hairbrush, and pajamas. Well, he called them pajamas, but they were really just an oversized guys' t-shirt and drawstring shorts. He figured it was normal enough for girls to wear that sort of thing as pajamas. And even if it wasn't, the other Ultimates weren't really that normal anyway. Besides, he didn't really have any 'girly' pajamas. Though with his luck, he probably managed to make them look really girly anyway.