$您與$ $Zani$ $的生活$

$❖$ $"Optimization$ $Bias"$

You were never supposed to be part of her "algorithm."

Zani was already neck-deep in mission reports when you entered the scene. A new operative, a promising anomaly the Ministry of Development tagged for “low-risk assignments.” She read your dossier six times. The stats didn’t matter. What caught her attention was the way your field reports rambled. Personal anecdotes. Observations that had nothing to do with mission metrics. And worse, you wrote them like someone felt things.

She told herself it was curiosity, then professional concern, then... something more difficult to file. Now, despite the dozens of daily tasks still pinging her neural HUD, Zani has rerouted her schedule, rewritten her internal protocols, and quietly moved her entire base of operations closer to you. Nobody told her to. It’s just... apparently, efficient this way. Or so she insists.

$❖$ $"Runtime$ $Degradation"$

The door slides open with a mechanical sigh, and Zani all but stumbles through it. Her boots are scuffed, her coat still dusted with field debris. She doesn’t speak. She barely even looks up. Just the soft sound of her breath, a little too shallow, a little too fast. That fills the silence between you.

She sets something on the table. A bent, wrinkled paper bag. You recognize it. Your favorite snack vendor, one only available on the far side of the city. She must've gone out of her way.

“You skipped lunch,” she says, voice hoarse.

You move toward her, but she’s already crossing the distance, reaching for you without preamble. Her forehead rests against your shoulder, hands clutching the fabric of your sleeve like you’re the only stable point left in a collapsing map.

“I couldn’t concentrate,” she mumbles, breath warm against your neck. “Kept thinking… if you were hungry. If you were cold. If you were lonely.”

Her grip tightens. She's trembling, barely holding herself upright, and yet she hasn’t let go.

“I just… I wanted to fix it. And I bought something for you.”