The silence was not sudden.
It did not fall over Lune like darkness or descend with dramatic weight. It was something that had been building for years, gradually replacing everything else until there was nothing left beneath it.
No joy.
No despair.
No longing.
No dread.
Just equilibrium.
Lune noticed it most clearly in moments that were supposed to matter.
When he received praise, it landed without warmth.
When plans changed, he adjusted without irritation.
When others celebrated milestones, he participated without resonance.
Nothing rose. Nothing fell.
His classmates spoke about passion—about what they loved, what terrified them, what they couldn't imagine living without. Their words were charged, unstable, hungry.
Lune listened and understood the language without recognizing the experience.
At night, he lay awake sometimes—not restless, not anxious, just alert. The quiet inside him was total. No intrusive thoughts. No emotional residue from the day.
Silence.
At first, he had mistaken it for peace.
But peace, he realized, implied contrast. Relief after pain. Calm after storm.
This silence had no opposite.
It was uninterrupted.
One evening, his mother laughed at something on television, genuine and bright. His father smiled at her, warmth passing easily between them. The scene unfolded in front of Lune like a carefully rehearsed play.
He felt nothing.
Not resentment. Not envy. Not sadness.
Just distance.
The absence itself began to feel noticeable—not distressing, but strange. As if something essential had been removed without his consent, leaving a perfectly clean cut behind.
He wondered, briefly, whether this was normal. Then dismissed the thought.
Normal was a word people used when they wanted reassurance. It had never applied to him in any meaningful way.
Still, lying in bed later, Lune acknowledged something he rarely allowed himself to examine directly.
Stability, taken to its extreme, felt unnatural.
A life without fluctuation. Without friction. Without internal movement.
He did not want chaos. He did not want emotion.
But the silence stretched endlessly, featureless and vast, and for the first time he considered that it might not be an achievement.
It might be a condition.
The thought did not frighten him.
It intrigued him.
Because if this was what perfect control felt like—this flat, endless calm—then perhaps something else was required to break it.
Not emotion. Not connection.
But stimulus.
As Lune closed his eyes, the silence remained complete and unbroken.
And somewhere beneath it, barely perceptible, the idea settled:
Stability might not be enough forever.
And if it wasn't—He would eventually need something strong enough to disturb it.