Engine Boy, I Love You!

#4: At least we're not dead!

*WARNING: minor injuries, non-graphic description of vomiting

*Story is loosely connected to separate work (The Couples of Class 1-A; "Love-Coach Ochako", Ch. 1)

"Good morning, Hatsume..." Iida sighed grumpily, hefting open the door to the development studio at an hour that even he felt was ungodly.

"YOU MADE IT!" Hatsume screamed, practically making him deaf in the process.

Massaging his ears, Iida mumbled back a half-lucid response, "Not so loud. I only woke up a few minutes ago..."

"SORRY!"

He winced.

Iida frankly had no clue how she'd convinced him to wake up at four o'clock just to showcase to him another one of her ridiculous inventions. The previous afternoon, she'd dragged him away from his friends and begged him rather wholeheartedly for a favor.

"Pleeease Iida! None of my classmates wanted to help me for some reason."

"I wonder why," he answered dryly, attempting to leave again, but she grabbed him by the collar.

"Hey! You said we were friends, right? Right? So then you should help me!"

"I'm not obligated to do whatever you say, now that we're friends you know!" he shot back, "Five o'clock in the morning is a little absurd for testing machinery, don't you think!?"

"Well technically you'd have to wake up at four thirty-ish, if you want to get here on time. We need to be up at sunrise, so we'll have to start preparing at five, and then get everything all set up by six..."

Iida's face grew even paler, "Y-you've got to be kidding."

"Nope!" she laughed, "And technically I'll be up even earlier making adjustments, so why are you the one complaining?"

"Because I value my sleep!" he answered, straightening his glasses, "To maximize our learning potential, it is important that as students, we solidify an appropriate circadian rhythm—"

"Blah, blah, blah, just tell me if you're coming, engine boy."

He let out a disgruntled sigh before finally turning to look at her.

"Let go of my collar first."

Surprisingly, she let him go without further question, and waited patiently for him to make his choice. Iida whipped out his phone for a moment and tapped something on the screen.

"I will tell you later if I have plans, but meeting up like this every time we want to talk is going to become a hassle."

To her shock, Iida held out his phone to her, displaying a column for creating a new contact. She blinked at it for several seconds, before peering up at him with an unusually blank expression.

"You're asking for my number?"

He jolted, his cheeks reddening slightly. "Just for convenience's sake."

She grinned slyly at him. "Gotcha."

With that, the two mismatched friends exchanged information, and eventually Iida reluctantly replied back that he had no excuse not to help Hatsume the following morning.

Admittedly however, he hadn't prepared for the occasion as much as he should have.

"Why do you keep shouting? I'm right here..."

She cocked her head, "I'M SHOUTING? I WOULDN'T KNOW SINCE I'VE BEEN DRILLING AND POUNDING ALL NIGHT LONG TO FINISH THIS!"

Iida decided after that point to just hold his hands over his ears until he got used to the noise increase.