The girl's crying didn't stop when they went inside.
It followed them down the corridor in broken echoes, bouncing off lockers and tiled walls. The sound had changed now—less sharp, more exhausted—but it carried weight. The kind that made other children fidget and whisper and glance toward the nurse's office with wide eyes.
Lune walked in line, his gaze fixed forward. He counted the floor tiles as they passed. Twenty-seven from the classroom door to the corner. Forty-two to the sinks. The numbers stayed steady even as the noise swelled behind him.
The girl sat on the bench near the nurse's room, her knee wrapped in gauze already tinged pink. Her face was blotchy, wet. She watched everyone who passed her, her crying renewing in small surges whenever someone met her eyes.
When Lune passed, she cried louder.
It wasn't intentional on his part. He hadn't meant to provoke anything. He had only looked. He had been curious about how the blood had soaked through the white fabric so quickly.
He stopped walking.
The line of children stalled behind him, confusion rippling backward. Lune turned and stepped toward the bench. The girl's sobs hitched, uncertain, as she saw him approach.
He crouched in front of her, close enough to see the unevenness of her breathing. He studied the bandage, the way it bulged slightly where the gauze was layered thickest.
There was a delay before he moved.
It wasn't hesitation. It was consideration.
He reached out and pressed his fingers gently against the bandage.
The girl screamed.
The sound was immediate and violent, far louder than before. Her body jerked back, knocking against the wall. The pressure of Lune's fingers was minimal, careful, but it was enough. Pain reacted faster than expectation.
Lune withdrew his hand instantly, watching the reaction unfold. The scream drew adults like a signal flare.
"What are you doing?" Ms. Han shouted.
Hands grabbed Lune's shoulders and pulled him back. Another teacher rushed in. The nurse appeared, her face tightening as she took in the scene. The girl sobbed uncontrollably now, her distress feeding off the attention it had summoned.
"I—" Ms. Han started, then stopped.
Lune stood where he had been placed, his arms at his sides. He looked from the girl to the adults, noting the sharpness in their movements, the way their voices overlapped. Fear, he realized distantly. Not from the injury. From him.
"I wanted to see," he said.
His voice was even. Too even.
Ms. Han stared at him, her mouth slightly open. "See what, Lune?"
He considered the question. He could answer truthfully, but he had already learned that truth was often unsatisfactory.
"Why she was crying louder," he said instead.
The adults exchanged looks. The nurse ushered the girl inside, closing the door firmly behind her. The corridor felt suddenly hollow without the noise.
Ms. Han knelt in front of Lune, lowering herself to his eye level. Her face was carefully arranged into something gentle, but her eyes searched him with a new urgency.
"Did you know that would hurt her?" she asked.
Lune thought about it. He had suspected it would. He had not felt anything about that knowledge.
"Yes," he said.
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Why did you do it, then?"
Lune looked at her hands. They were trembling slightly.
"I wanted to know if it was the same," he said.
"The same as what?"
"The first time."
Ms. Han straightened slowly. Her gaze flicked toward the nurse's office, then back to Lune. The corridor felt smaller. Too bright.
"That's… not something we do," she said finally.
Lune nodded. He had already understood that much.
By the end of the day, his parents were called. By the end of the week, appointments were scheduled. By the end of the month, words like evaluation and specialist and diagnosis would enter his life.
But in that moment, standing in the corridor with adults watching him as if he were something unfamiliar, Lune felt only the same quiet stillness he always had.
The world around him had changed.
He had not.