Engine Boy, I Love You!

#3 (Bonus): The Shinso Fan-Club

*Bonus one-shots are not canon to the main plot.

Shoving open the door to the development studio, Iida strode in casually with his costume case in-hand.

"Hatsume! Are you here today?"

He glanced around for a moment, his eyes landing on her usual two classmates. As if on cue, both of them jabbed their thumbs to the right, directing Iida's attention to the center workbench.

I see she's her usual self. he noted, beginning to approach her.

As he got closer, Iida could hear the faint, chipper sound of her humming as she tinkered with some odd invention of hers. A yard short of her, Iida cleared his throat, bending forward slightly for her to notice him.

"Good afternoon, Hatsume." he greeted, "Sorry to interrupt, but I have something I need you to look at—"

"SHH!"

Startled, Iida backed away as Hatsume's hand shoved him in the face.

"Hatsume—!?"

"I'm busy, I'm busy!" she shouted, "You're gonna have to come back later, race-legs! I've got other priorities!"

"Other priorities?" an annoyed look crossed his face, "You forgot, didn't you?"

Hesitating with her wrench, she finally glanced at him. "Forgot what?"

"I scheduled a repair request for this afternoon! It takes precedence over whatever it is that you're making, you realize!"

Realizing she had indeed completely forgotten, Hatsume's head rolled back as she groaned angrily at him. "Are you serious? I'm working on something so cool though!"

He raised an eyebrow at her, "That's strange, normally you're super excited to work on my costume."

"Yeah, but you're always coming around here with stuff. I want something new to work on every now-and-then, yanno."

"Tsk," he responded, crossing his arms, "Well regardless, you should be working on my costume right now. Mr. Maijima went through all the trouble of setting up the form-submission system to reduce problems with waiting lines."

She paused for a moment, tapping the end of her wrench against her lip. She glanced to her left, then to her right, and then finally shook her head and resumed fastening the bolt she was focused on.

"Nope! I refuse today!" she declared, "I'm not doing anything else until this is done!"

A completely betrayed look came over Iida's eyes. Frustrated, he started chopping his arm at her as he let forth a barrage of complaints.

"I went through all the trouble of filling out a form! You can't just skip over me! I'll—I'll tell your teacher!"

"Hah! No you won't!"

He gritted his teeth, realizing threats had never been very effective against her. Then, with an exasperated sigh, Iida leaned against the table and asked: "What are you even working on?"

This was a mistake.

The moment he'd said this, Hatsume's face shot up, eyes gleaming. "You want to know about my new baby!?"

"Uh, well, I..."

He looked at the remaining classmates for help, but the moment Hatsume had gotten that glint in her eyes, they packed their backs and snuck out of the studio.

"Great!" she answered, ignoring his pause, "I'll tell you all about it!"

Holding up the strange contraption, Hatsume forced him to watch as she turned the knob of the device. As she clicked the knob, the rectangular plates began to rotate, altering with them, the various strings that were strung along the front.