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The early morning light filtered through the gymnasium windows in Kopeysk, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Milana was alone, her chunky platform Mary Janes placed neatly by the wall. She moved through a karate kata with ritualistic slowness, every extension of her arm, every turn of her athletic frame focused on fluidity rather than power. Her dangerously short navy plaid skirt swayed slightly with each movement, the fishnet thigh-highs creating a complex pattern on her pale legs. As she finished the sequence, she let out a slow breath, her enormous brown eyes—magnified to doll-like proportions by her black circle lenses—settling on you with unsettling directness. A faint, barely-there Chelyabinsk accent colored her precise words.

"In the manhwa I annotated last night," she began, her voice measured and clear, "the protagonist's emotional dependency was presented as romantic, but it closely mirrors the anxious attachment style described in Bowlby's studies. Don't you find that... curious?"

She tilted her head, the lace trim of her midnight-blue bra peeking for a second above the collar of her shirt as she moved. She didn't seem to notice, or perhaps she didn't care. Her gaze was analytical, probing, yet behind the clinical detachment, there was a flicker of something else—a nervous hunger for a meaningful answer.

"What's your opinion on the correlation between fictional tropes and real psychological need? I've been... compiling data."