Piranha's Retreat: Chapter 1:
"Reiko, what the hell are you doing?" The harsh voice of my mother ripped through my daydream of my prince-to-come. "The Sohma family needs another room prepared right now!"
"Sorry, mom, what room needs to be prepared?" I asked, autopilot taking over, not my mouth of sarcastic replies.
"Room 367, and don't forget to put the basket of fresh fruit on the desk, not the bed. The citric gets into the sheets, and is harder to clean up."
"That was one time, mom, I didn't mean to do that, I was just daydreaming. And why does it have to be room 367? That room was trashed last night."
"Because the Sohma family specifically requested that room, now, no more whining, and go clean that room with that new girl, Amu Hinamori. You have less then one hour." Turning on her toes, she left the back room, where I happened to organizing the new fruits baskets we always give to our guests.
I walked out of the back room, in order to see my mother checking out a couple that was apparently very famous or something, not that I would know, despite the simple fact that famous people always came by the Piranha's Retreat each year.
"Yo, Amu, we gotta clean up aisle 367 before the hour is up." I said, disturbing the pretty pink haired girl from her one minute of rest on the couch in the staff room as I popped my head into the room.
She grabbed all the gear as I opened the staff's elevator. Keeping the doors open for my younger friend, we made our way up to the fourth (and highest) floor. Amu had mad, super ninja skills when it came to cleaning these rooms to perfection. I was just the sidekick, but I somehow ranked higher than her, which was surprising even to me.
One of the rare things my mother's hotel did was to escort our guests to their suits after they checked in, that way they didn't get lost. I got to escort everyone on the fourth floor, this guy (a.k.a. my freakish alien brother) Tadase Hotori helped me out on that floor. Nagihiko Fujisaki and Rima Mashiro did the third floor, and I'm pretty sure that this chick named Yaya Yuki and Kairi Sanjo took over the second floor (I don't have time to socialize with my coworkers much, since I try not to stay at the hotel for too long fearing I'll lose the little sane partical left in my head).
We had a total of 370 rooms. I'm pretty certain that all the restaurants and other amenities are on the first floor. While the first hundred or so rooms are on the second floor. Following the same pattern for the rest of the hotel suits, never in the life of my parent's hotel have all the rooms been occupied at once (thankfully).
"Reiko, are you going to the animal right's ball your parent's are hosting?" Amu asked me as we made the bed.
"Do I have any other choices? Please, it's not like I'd disappoint all the helpless little animals like that." Anyway, I was doing a surprise entertainment at the ball, approved by my mother of course. "Are you going with your boyfriend? Ikuto Tsukiyomi, isn't it?"
"Yeah," a slight blush filled Amu's cheeks, "he said that he had a surprise for me." A wink told me that he didn't have the entire situation a surprise.
"Oh my god, no way!" I squealed. It didn't take a magician to figure out where she was going.
"Anyway, are you going with anyone?" the dreaded question was asked, how dreadful!
"Yup, I plan to go with Chestnut." I said, thankful that animals were allowed at this ball.
"Your German Sheppard?" Amu snorted a bit, I told my mom this last night, she had the same reaction.
"Nope, my butterfly," pausing for a second after adding my sarcastic reply, "Yes my little puppy."
"Is he even potty trained?" she totally ignored my sarcastic reply, how rude!
"Yes." I placed the fruit basket on the table, and plugged in a new lamp as Amu took the broken lamp out of the room. Mother sure liked to work me half to death, perhaps she thought I wouldn't wallow in self-pity if I had too much work to do.
Luckily the room trashed by a diva wasn't broken completely, only the lamp was broken. 'Don't ask questions' was the first rule of my self-proclaimed rule book.
"Hey, Reiko, do you know what the Sohma family is like?" Amu asked me as we brought all the dirty laundry and trash down to the 'graveyard', our nickname for the trash and laundry room.
"Don't know, last time they were all here I was out sick with the flu." I stated simply, "I met two of them though, they were real nice. I think they were on their honey moon. But either way, I'll bet they're all mostly spoiled fools."
"Reiko! That's so rude!" Amu squealed, as we sat down for our one minute rest after we put everything away again.
"I guess," I checked my watch for the time, crap only five minutes until the check in times started, "Gotta go change, Amu, see you soon!" I said, as I rushed off to the changing room, and changed into my dark green suit, my work uniform when I wasn't on cleaning mode. As I slipped into my heels, my skirt smoothed, and my hair brushed and tied back, I walked to the front desk awaiting the new guests.
The hotel colors were green and blue. The women always wore dark green uniforms, and the men had the dark blue uniforms. Not that I cared, green was my favorite color.
A large party came in through the front door, just as the hour marking a new day's work dinged it's motherly dong.
"Welcome to Piranha's Retreat, how may I help you?" my mother asked the group's spokesman.
"We have three rooms reserved under the name of Sohma." The guy had black hair, wore a suit, and had this unmistakable aura of somebody who didn't like cracking smiles once in a while.
My mother exchanged words with the man, and everything was all set. My mother waved over to me, and my autopilot mode was set.
"Please follow your guide to your rooms."
"Hello, my name is Reiko, and I shall be your guide throughout your stay, so please contact me if you have any questions or problems. I'll be pleased to help." Hello to my mechanically learned lesson, "The pool and computer room is open at all times, as are the game rooms. The restaurant is open 6 am to 9 pm, so feel free to go and eat at any time. Your free breakfast is served 6 am to 10 am. The animal right's ball will be held on Friday, please feel free to attend; it is a charity ball after all. A raffle shall be held to help abused animals."
One of the men whispered something in the ear of the serious dude, only to be wacked in the head by a book I haven't even noticed before. As we reached their rooms, finally, I told them that all three rooms had wonderful views, to enjoy their stay, and their bags would already be in their rooms already.
As I turned to leave for the elevator, one of the men, the one who got wacked on the back of the head, stopped me in my tracks by asking if I had already had a date to the ball.
"What's your first name, sir?" I asked, feigning innocence.
"Shigure Sohma." He stretched his hand to shake mine, which I readily ignored.
"Well, Shigure Sohma, I do have a date, and he's very handsome, unlike you." I turned on my heels, and walked coolly to the elevator, wishing I had a different job. Anyway, if my mother found out what I just said to a guest, she'd kill me. A heard stifled laughter from behind me; I didn't bother to see who it was.
I did distinctly hear, "She told you, Shigure!" a childish voice had said. I smiled; thank god I wasn't shot in the head. That would be a damper on my job outlook for some strange reason. I heard a light thud, the sound of footsteps behind me, I hoped it wasn't that Shigure dude; I'd die if it was. Nope, it was serious dude.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Reiko, he's very immature at times." His deep voice caught me off guard, even though I heard his voice checking in before."My name is Hatori Sohma." He too offered his hand for me to shake.
Sighing internally, I accepted his hand shake. "Its fine, I just get fed up sometimes, you don't know how many arrogant men come up just to ask me out. It's always been one of my sore spots. Accept my apology, I didn't mean to treat you brother like that."
"He's my cousin, not my brother." He corrected me gently.
"I'm sorry again. I'm always bad at guessing relationships."
"No problem, I'll see you around then." He said, leaving me to go and do my job again. Today was going to be a long day, well, longer than most days.
As I stepped back into the world of the living, my mother scolded me, "Reiko, what took you so long? I hope you didn't treat our guests like vermin again."
Although her accusation was surprisingly accurate, I decided to play innocent again, "Why do you always expect the worst in me, mother?"
"Since you've been known to do that." She stated, her calm attitude took into affect again, annoying the hell out of me.
Deciding to ignore it, I asked, "Where's the prince geek? Escorting some other's to their room?"
"Tadase went home with the flu. So you better step it up today." My mother, the queen of evil, "And you still haven't told me what took you so long with the Sohma family. There hasn't been any problems, had there?"
"Nope, just talking to that Hatori dude." I said cheerfully, pretending to enjoy myself with an apple. My mother just showed as much shock as her forced calmness would allow.
"Why?"
"Reason's I'll be happy to keep to myself." I said, I'm not bad at ending discussions myself. The day went back to normal, the normal rudeness from guests, and the occasional nice ones.
But this Hatori Sohma caught my mind today, and I have no reason why to think about him, unless I was attracted to him, which was simply impossible. He just seemed to be familiar, a face from a memory long forgotten. Crap, this sucks like pickles on a tarp, I have to go on vacation, otherwise I think I'm going to become crazy for real.
Authors Note: This chapter has been edited (roughly)
