Lune conducted his self-assessment the way he did everything else—quietly, without ceremony, and without sentiment.
It happened one evening after dinner, when his parents had gone to bed and the house settled into its familiar hum. He sat at his desk with the lamp turned low, hands folded, posture relaxed. There was no list in front of him, no journal to fill. The evaluation took place internally, precise and complete.
He reviewed outcomes, not intentions.
He had avoided institutional scrutiny.
He had maintained adult trust.
He had secured visibility without vulnerability.
He had achieved safety without dependence.
Every objective he had ever identified—explicitly or otherwise—had been met.
Lune searched for regret the way one searched for a missing item: carefully, methodically, prepared to acknowledge it if found.
There was none.
He did not regret the friendships he had let dissolve. They had served their purpose. He did not regret the performances, the calibrated emotions, the truths he had never offered. They had produced the desired results.
He did not regret the distance from his parents. Distance had preserved stability. Attachment would have complicated things.
Even the silence inside him—flat, uninterrupted—did not inspire remorse. It simply existed, like a landscape he had learned to navigate.
Regret, he knew, was rooted in comparison. In imagining an alternate version of oneself who had chosen differently and lived better.
Lune could not imagine such a version.
Any deviation from the path he had taken introduced unnecessary variables. Chaos. Exposure. Loss of control.
The life he had built was optimal.
At school, graduation preparations continued. Teachers praised him for his consistency, his composure, his reliability. Counselors spoke of him as a success story—proof that structure and guidance worked.
Lune accepted the praise without internal reaction.
He was not proud of himself. Pride implied uncertainty resolved in one's favor. He had never doubted the outcome.
Instead, he felt trust.
Trust in his judgment. Trust in his systems. Trust in his ability to read situations and act accordingly.
Trust, he realized, was the only thing that mattered now.
Others trusted him because he had never failed them. He trusted himself because he had never failed himself.
That distinction mattered.
Late that night, Lune stood by his window and looked out over the street below. Lights flickered on and off in distant apartments. Cars passed intermittently, their headlights tracing predictable arcs through the dark.
Everything moved according to pattern. He felt no desire to change anything.
If this was what success looked like—control without friction, visibility without vulnerability—then he had achieved it fully.
And if something more existed beyond this state, he did not need it.
Lune turned away from the window and prepared for bed, his movements unhurried, precise.
There was no sense of something lost. No weight of alternative lives unlived.
Only the quiet certainty that he had done exactly what was required. And that he could trust himself to continue doing so.