Dr. Liao's pen moved. A small note. The sound of it was quiet but permanent.
"Did you want her to cry?" Dr. Liao asked.
"No," Lune said. He meant it. Want implied desire. He had no desire for her pain. He had only wanted information.
"Did you feel bad when she cried?" Dr. Liao asked.
Lune looked at her face and searched for the correct response. Children were supposed to feel bad. Adults liked that. If he said yes, would that end this? If he said no, would it become bigger?
He chose a middle ground. "I didn't like the noise," he said.
Dr. Liao's eyes narrowed by a fraction, not in anger but concentration. "What about her? Did you feel bad for her?"
Lune looked at his reflection in the glass behind Dr. Liao. He watched himself sit calmly, hands folded, expression neutral. He wondered what it would look like to be the child adults wanted.
He tried.
"I'm sorry," Lune said, voice soft.
The words sounded correct. The emotion behind them did not exist.
Dr. Liao waited. Something in her stillness shifted—like she was listening for a second layer that wasn't there.
"Can you tell me what sorry feels like?" she asked.
Lune's fingers flexed once in his lap. He didn't know how to answer. Sorry felt like a word people used to end discomfort. It felt like a tool.
"It feels… like I shouldn't do it again," he said.
Dr. Liao's pen scratched again. Another note, longer this time.
His mother's breath caught. His father's arms tightened across his chest.
Dr. Liao reached toward the toy basket and pulled out the stuffed bear. She held it up gently. "What about this?" she asked. "Do you like it?"
Lune looked at the bear's stitched smile. It was too wide. Too fixed. A permanent expression without feeling.
"It's soft," he said.
"And do you think it has feelings?" Dr. Liao asked.
Lune blinked once. "No."
"What about people?" she asked carefully. "Do people have feelings?"
"Yes," Lune said, because that was true. They clearly did. He had watched them.
"And when they're hurt, what should we do?" Dr. Liao asked.
Lune understood what she wanted: comfort. He had seen it performed. He had even practiced it.
"We should say sorry," he said.
"And do you want to help people when they're hurt?" she asked.
Lune looked at her face. He could see the hope in the question, disguised as curiosity. Adults asked questions like this because they needed answers to be shaped a certain way.
He hesitated. The hesitation was real. It wasn't guilt. It was calculation.
"Yes," he said.
The room went quiet again, not comfortable quiet but listening quiet.
Dr. Liao smiled once more, but the smile was thinner now. She made one final note on her clipboard, the pen pressing harder than before.
Then she stood.
"Thank you, Lune," she said. "You did very well."
His mother exhaled shakily, relief trying to form. His father's face remained tight, as if he had not decided whether "well" meant safe.
Dr. Liao's gaze slid briefly to the dark glass of the observation window, and for the first time Lune noticed the faint outline of someone on the other side.
A shadow. Still. Watching.
Dr. Liao didn't acknowledge it. She just turned back to the clipboard, her pen moving in quick, silent lines.
Notes being written. Quietly. Permanently.
Lune watched his reflection in the glass again. He watched his own face remain calm.
And he understood, with a clarity that made his chest feel strangely hollow, that whatever they were writing down would become a story about him—one he did not control yet.
Not yet.