The stage lights were warmer than the classroom lights.
They did not erase shadows; they shaped them. When Lune stepped into their glow, the edges of the room dissolved, leaving only the floor beneath his feet and the dark mass of the audience beyond. Faces blurred together into a single presence—watching, waiting.
He felt no nerves.
Mr. Luo had given them simple roles for the showcase, nothing elaborate. Short scenes. Clear emotions. "Don't overthink it," he had said, clapping his hands. "Just be honest."
Lune understood immediately that honesty was not the requirement.
Believability was.
When his cue came, he walked onto the stage with measured steps, posture relaxed but attentive. He felt the room lean toward him. The silence sharpened.
His character was meant to be worried—concerned about losing something important. Lune had studied the script carefully, but the words mattered less than the timing between them. He paused before speaking, letting the absence of sound suggest weight. He lowered his gaze at the right moment, allowed his shoulders to slope just enough.
He did not feel worry. He performed it.
The line landed. A murmur rippled through the audience. Someone shifted in their seat. Someone else inhaled sharply.
Lune continued.
He adjusted micro-expressions as he went, responding not to the scene but to the room. When the audience leaned forward, he slowed. When attention wavered, he sharpened his tone. He felt their reactions as clearly as if they were written into the script.
This was not chaos. This was control.
When the scene ended, there was a brief pause—half a breath of silence where the room decided what it had just seen.
Then applause broke out.
It wasn't thunderous. It didn't need to be. The sound rolled forward in overlapping waves, hands striking hands, approval made audible. Lune watched from the stage, his expression held in neutral humility, head slightly bowed.
The applause was not joy. It was confirmation.
He tracked it carefully. Duration. Volume. Where it spiked, where it softened. He noticed that the loudest applause followed moments that had not been truthful, only convincing. Exaggerated vulnerability. Carefully placed hesitation.
Lies, shaped well, earned the strongest response.
Backstage, Mr. Luo gripped his shoulders, eyes bright. "That was incredible," he said. "You made them feel something."
Lune nodded, accepting the statement without internal echo.
Other students looked at him differently now. With awe. With curiosity. With something like envy. Wei stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.
"You were amazing," Wei said. "I thought you were really sad."
Lune smiled. The small one. The practiced one.
"I wasn't," he said lightly.
Wei laughed, assuming it was a joke.
At home that night, Lune replayed the performance in his mind—not the scene itself, but the audience's reaction. The applause followed structure. Build, peak, release. It obeyed rules as clearly as any chart on the refrigerator.
He understood something fundamental then. People did not reward truth. They rewarded the appearance of truth. And the better the illusion, the stronger the response.
Standing in front of his mirror before bed, Lune practiced the expression that had drawn the loudest applause. He refined it further, shaving away excess until it looked effortless.
The mirror reflected a boy who looked sincere.
He felt nothing. And yet the world had clapped.