They introduced emotional recall on the third day.
The room shifted immediately—lights dimmed, voices lowered, chairs rearranged into a circle. The coach spoke gently now, as if gentleness itself carried authority.
"Acting comes from truth," she said. "From lived experience. Today, we access memory."
Lune listened.
He had known this would come.
They instructed the trainees to close their eyes and recall a moment of loss. Pain. Fear. Something formative. The air thickened with discomfort. Someone began to cry quietly.
Lune closed his eyes.
He did not search for feeling.
He searched for structure.
Loss, he knew, was defined externally—slower movement, softened gaze, tension held in the jaw. Fear had its own markers. Regret another. He selected elements the way one selected notes in a scale, assembling an emotional architecture without requiring internal sensation.
When it was his turn, he stood.
"Begin when ready," the coach said softly.
Lune inhaled once and let his shoulders drop. He allowed his eyes to unfocus just enough. His voice emerged steady but fragile, shaped to suggest restraint rather than collapse.
He spoke of an imagined moment—details sparse, delivery precise. He allowed silence where memory would normally falter. He let his hands tremble once, then still.
The room leaned in.
By the time he finished, the quiet was heavy. The coach blinked rapidly, eyes glossy.
"That," she said, voice thick, "was very brave."
Lune inclined his head.
Another coach spoke. "You don't have to share, but… was that personal?"
Lune hesitated.
The hesitation was deliberate.
"Yes," he said.
The word landed like permission.
They surrounded him afterward with concern disguised as admiration. Trauma, they decided, explained the depth. It made the performance legible. Safe.
"He's drawing from something real," someone whispered. "You can't teach that."
Lune listened without reacting.
They praised his courage. His vulnerability. His honesty.
None of it touched him.
What interested him was how easily invention passed as truth when framed correctly. How hunger for authenticity made people generous in their assumptions.
That night, his agent called.
"They love you," she said. "They think you've been through something."
Lune smiled into the phone, careful to sound modest. "I just did what they asked."
After the call, he stood in his room, staring at his reflection. His face looked the same—pleasant, attentive, unremarkable.
Emotional recall, he understood, was not about remembering.
It was about convincing others you had.
And if they believed the depth came from pain, they would never look for it anywhere else.
Praise escalated. Opportunities followed. The studio began to shape him as a narrative as much as a performer.
Lune lay down and closed his eyes.
This, too, was a system.
And he was learning how to master it.