She isn't sure why the boy has made a particular effort to find her, but it is not lost on her that the moment he steps into the dining hall, he makes a beeline for her. What is more, he inelegantly brandishes a freshly-brewed cup of fragrant rose hip tea. She can't suppress a giggle at the absurdity of the situation - a boy after her own heart, she quips to herself. She is in good spirits and does enjoy a good cup of rose hip tea, so she decides to entertain him for now - today must be this Ultimate Lucky Student's ultimate lucky day.
Celeste is in good spirits in large part because today marks two full nights of peaceful cohabitation, and notably, zero violations of her nighttime rule. She must admit that she owes Ishimaru a great deal for this development, for his nightly patrols have allowed her to bring the hammer down on the communal regulation. Whatever the reason, things are peaceful and the students are in high spirits - everything is under control, and everything is going exactly to plan.
With the exception of this silly boy, that is. He almost trips over his own feet as he comes up on the table, losing a shoe in the process, before clumsily setting down the cup. Even as it rattles around in the quaint little dish he's placed it in, not a drop spills out. Lucky, indeed. He looks at her almost expectantly, as if waiting for her to acknowledge either his presence or the fragrant cup of tea he's set down. He sports a goofy eye smile that makes him look a bit like a puppy; Celeste giggles to herself as she pictures him panting, tongue lolling about. Still, she's curious about what he has to say and is perfectly content to wait him out.
"H-hey, Celeste." He starts out simply enough. Lifting her chin in his direction, she holds his gaze for the briefest of moments before his eyes dart away. The clumsy confidence with which he'd approached her is instantly gone, replaced by nervous apprehension. "Um, I was wondering… if you wanted to chat with me for a bit."
Celeste lets the tension hang in the air a moment longer than she needs to before responding - a tactic she's employed religiously in her gambling days - and relishes the sight of the boy squirming under her regal gaze. She smiles as the sweat begins to bead on his forehead, deciding to put the boy out of his misery. "I suppose you may entertain me for a little while."
The boy would make an utterly horrendous gambler. His palpable nervousness shows itself in his sweating forehead, his trembling hands, his shaky voice. He stumbles through sentences with "ums" and "likes" in a manner quite unrefined. If he looks at all like a puppy, he acts doubly so; he practically bounds off the walls with nervous energy and without composure. The back-and-forth is stilted and unnatural - he talks at length about everything and nothing, and Celeste responds in elegant platitudes that she hopes convey her polite disinterest in the topics at hand. Eventually and inevitably, the lopsided conversation arrives at the topic of escaping the school, and in predictable fashion, the boy says his piece.
"I want to find a way to escape." Young men, Celeste has found, are always quite like this. Even the ones that lack that overt masculinity of Owada manage to be reckless and over-eager to be heroes. It costs them when they gamble, and it costs them equally in their daily lives.
"And I believe that escape is impossible, and that adaptation is our only means of survival." This line of conversation has the potential to wind on forever and the guarantee to go absolutely nowhere. She levels her cool gaze at him, hoping to convey her desire to change the subject, but she's shocked by the wholly different boy who meets her eyes with strength in his own.
"I'm going to get us out of here. I promise you." She's hardly shocked by the content of his words, but the unbridled certainty with which he says them is jarring. "I'll work tirelessly - I'll scan every inch of this school until I can find us a way out. Even if it takes me weeks, months, or years, we're getting out of here."
She pauses again, this time to watch the boy's response to his own words. The eyes that flitted about nervously now have a strange sort of resolve behind them, and though his youthful voice still cracks at the ends of his sentences, it is steadier than before. Where before he flinched uncomfortably at her level gaze, this time he stares right back at her with a heartfelt intensity. It's almost enough to make her squirm.
"You promise… me? You are certainly quick to make promises to suspicious people you do not know. Not to mention, promises that I am unsure you will be able to keep."
His gaze intensifies, from strong to almost defiant. "I'm sure I can. That I can promise you this much, I mean. Because…" and suddenly, the fire in his eyes is gone; he breaks eye contact, his gaze cast down towards his hands. He picks at them delicately, almost as if peeling away a film that is nowhere in sight. When he speaks up again, his voice is quieter, but no less intense and brimming with conviction. "Because I've made a promise to someone else, too. And I'm going to keep that promise, for sure. I'll come up with a plan, some sort of perfect strategy that can get us out of here. I just need time."
It takes all of Celeste's strength not to roll her eyes when the boy references an implicit promise to the pop sensation. And though she naturally holds very little respect for the emotional and the unthinking, something about the boy's frenetic, shortsightedly optimistic rhetoric remains refreshing. Perhaps it is for this reason that, before she knows it, she finds herself speaking. "I would like to share something with you," she begins. He looks up at her, surprise and confusion washing over his youthful features. "My own perfect gambling strategy."
"Is there really such a thing?"
"Of course there is."
"And why are you sharing this with me?"
"Because," she smiles. "You appear to be gambling with the highest of stakes." She steeples her fingers in front of her face, hiding the smile that threatens to take shape. "And for lack of any better form of entertainment, I am intrigued." She clasps her hands together beneath her chin and watches the boy across the table. He leans forward, his fingertips gripping the edge of the table; Celeste can't help but relish the feeling of watching him yearn for more.
"As you know, in three years, I've gambled to great success. Of course, whatever the game, you must have a mind for strategy." The boy nods, eagerly and expectantly, and Celeste once again feels a smug satisfaction bubbling in her stomach. His right leg bounces excitedly, like the wagging tail of the puppy he so resembles. "This will allow you to increase your odds of winning. The exciting part about gambling, however, is that there is a power which can overwhelm any strategy."
"That power," she pauses theatrically. "Is luck." The boy must have been expecting some silly sliver of game theory and is seemingly nonplussed, but Celeste is on a roll. "There are only two types of luck - good and bad. That luck is built into every human at the moment of conception, like a computer program. Luck, one might say, is life." She lets the Ultimate Lucky Student hang on her final statement. "Do you see what I am saying?"
"Luck is life…" He squints at nothing on his hands again, his brow crinkling as he visibly grapples with her words. After what seems like quite a while, he looks up at her, a cautious confidence bubbling in his gaze. "So this is your way of saying that you believe in me."
"I believe in luck," she corrects him. "And I am allowing myself to be intrigued by the luck of the Ultimate Lucky Student, if only to satisfy my provisional curiosity."
"Thanks, Celeste." Despite her flippant response, the boy seems to take some encouragement from their interaction. "I won't let you down."
Celeste can't help but scoff at his brazen optimism and naivete. "I'm sure. My own luck never has."
It's still annoying when the flitty bluenette eventually comes to drag the boy away, and how his eyes widen like milk chocolate saucers at the sight of her. But for whatever reason, Celeste is a little less irritated this time - it must be the rose hip tea, she muses, washing her satisfaction down with another elegant sip.