The lesson was never stated outright.
It arrived piecemeal, threaded through years of careful parenting, structured consequences, and softened language. Lune absorbed it the way he absorbed everything else—by watching what happened when people succeeded, and what happened when they failed.
The moment it crystallized came on an ordinary evening.
His father had made a mistake at work. Nothing dramatic, nothing criminal—just an error in judgment that had cost time, money, and goodwill. He didn't explain the details. He didn't need to.
What mattered was how he handled it.
At dinner, his father spoke lightly, dismissively. "It's handled," he said, waving his hand as if brushing away crumbs. "These things happen."
Later, when he thought Lune was asleep, his parents argued in low voices in the kitchen.
"You should have been more careful," his mother hissed.
"I was," his father replied. "I just didn't expect—"
"It doesn't matter," she cut in. "What matters is no one can trace it back to you."
Silence followed. Heavy. Final.
Lune lay awake in his room, listening.
The next day, his father was calm again. Smiling. Relieved. The problem, whatever it had been, was already fading into something abstract—an inconvenience, not a failure.
Lune understood then.
Mistakes were not defined by what you did.
They were defined by whether anyone could prove it.
Later that week, his mother corrected him gently after he interrupted a conversation at a family gathering.
"Not like that," she said softly, fingers brushing his wrist. "If you need to say something difficult, you wait. You phrase it kindly. You make it sound reasonable."
"So they won't be upset?" Lune asked.
"So they won't remember," she replied, without thinking.
The words stayed with him.
Never be remembered for the wrong thing.
Never stand out at the wrong time.
Never give anyone reason to look closer.
His parents did not teach him this out of malice. They taught it out of fear—fear of institutions, of labels, of judgment. Fear of what happened to children who were noticed too closely.
"People are kinder when they don't feel threatened," his father said once, tired but sincere. "That's just how it is."
Lune nodded.
By then, he no longer needed examples. The rule assembled itself fully in his mind, clean and elegant:
If you must do something wrong, ensure it cannot be traced.
If you must break a rule, ensure it leaves no residue.
If you must be different, ensure no one sees it.
This was not advice. It was inheritance.
That night, standing alone in his room, Lune considered the rule carefully—not with rebellion, not with resistance, but with acceptance.
He did not feel constrained by it.
He felt protected.
As he turned off the light and lay down, the lesson settled into him completely.
Never be caught did not mean never act. It meant act only when success was guaranteed.
And Lune understood—fully, finally—that he was very good at guaranteeing outcomes.