G-d Rest Ye Merry Riderman
She shook her head. She didn't say anything, but that slight shake of the head was enough. He sighed with exasperation, rolling his eyes like a disaffected teenager, throwing the mittens back towards the display. Of course, Yuuki-senpai would not need mittens, what was he thinking? Still, the season had him on edge, possibly more on edge than the great battle in which they had finally, finally put a stop to the Great Leader's schemes, defeating the Badan Empire for the last time. At least he knew what to expect when facing down Shocker kaijin; buying Christmas presents for his friends though, that was a different kind of battle.
Since that fateful confrontation, Oki Kazuya had found himself more often than not in the company of the prototype HumaGear, Izu 0.1. Old man Hiden had declared that it would be advantageous to build bridges between his company and the International Space Development Programme, with the tacit knowledge of Kazuya's identity as Kamen Rider Super-1, and Yuuki Jouji, his ally, his friend, had concurred, feeling that the use of artificial life could be of great use in fighting any resurgence of Shocker if their forces were again spread too thin. Why then, he asked himself, did he get stuck with her? Surely she should have accompanied Yuuki-senpai?
He lifted up a scarf, bright red and decorated with reindeer, and again turned towards the android, standing passively at his back, dressed in her uniform of soft grey and mint green, hands neatly folded in her lap.
"What about a scarf? They all love scarves, right?"
Again, the android shook her head.
"Each of your friends owns an abundance of scarves, I believe."
He sighed once more. Was this what it was going to be like this all the time? He didn't even know what to call her. Izu? Zero? Rei? He had tried asking the question when first she had been assigned to him, but she seemed almost belligerently indifferent to the requirement of having a name, almost as if such was beneath her. He hoped that they ironed out that particular quirk in later models.
"Well, what do you suggest?" he asked.
Izu looked around the department store, and Kazuya was of the impression that she silently cataloguing every single item around her, until, at last, she nodded to herself again, strode away to a display in the next section, and then returned at last with a small tin displaying a turtle comically speeding away.
Proudly, she held up the tin for him to see, and Kazuya found himself looking at her in confusion, trying to understand exactly her reasoning.
"Car wax?" he asked.
She nodded, and just for a moment, there seemed to the hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.
"For their armour."
Once again, Oki Kazuya rolled his eyes and sighed like a disaffected adolescent.