Lune approached intimacy the way he approached everything else: as movement governed by rules.
The director called it "natural closeness," but Lune knew better. Nothing that read as natural on camera was accidental. Affection had rhythm. Touch had weight. Distance carried meaning. He studied all of it with the same precision he once applied to facial expressions in mirrors.
He watched how couples stood when they believed no one was looking—hips angled inward, shoulders relaxed, space closing without urgency. He noted how hands rested rather than grasped, how eye contact broke before it became confrontational.
On set, intimacy was blocked carefully. Where to stand. When to lean in. How long a touch lasted before it felt rehearsed. Lune absorbed the choreography quickly, then refined it beyond instruction.
He learned that affection worked best when it appeared incidental.
A brush of fingers while passing. A glance held half a beat too long, then released. A hand placed at the small of the back—not possessive, not tentative. The body did most of the work. The face merely confirmed it.
His co-star responded instinctively.
She adjusted her timing to his. She mirrored his stillness, mistaking it for attentiveness. When he leaned closer, she followed without hesitation. When he pulled back slightly, she filled the space unconsciously.
The camera adored it.
In playback, the intimacy looked effortless—unforced, unscripted, lived-in. Viewers would believe these two people existed before the script began and would continue after it ended.
That belief mattered more than chemistry.
Between takes, Lune remained unchanged. Polite. Calm. Present. He did not break the illusion by retreating or escalating. He kept the boundary invisible, allowing her to carry the emotional interpretation.
She began to speak of the scenes as if they were memories.
"I felt like you really saw me there," she said once, quietly, after a long day.
Lune met her eyes, softened his expression just enough. "That's the scene working."
She smiled, reassured.
He never corrected the misattribution.
At night, alone in the apartment, Lune replayed scenes in his head—not for pleasure, not for longing, but for optimization. Which gestures read most convincingly. Which angles translated warmth without intensity. Which silences invited projection.
Affection, he concluded, was most believable when it asked nothing in return.
Audiences sensed safety in that. They trusted characters who loved without demand.
When the first promotional stills were released, the response was immediate.
"They look so real."
"You can feel it."
"This kind of love doesn't exist anymore."
Lune read the comments without reaction.
The audience believed it. That was the goal.
As he lay down to sleep, the silence inside him remained undisturbed. Intimacy, simulated correctly, required no internal participation.
It was simply another language he spoke fluently.