Comes up Roses

Chapter 5: The Search for Honey-Senpai Begins

There was a lot of movement all at once as the Host Club mobilized.

"What happened?" Masae asked. One moment, she'd been sitting around talking with Fujioka, the next, they'd lost control of the wave pool and Honey was gone.

"Doofus over here slipped in the water gun fight!" Snapped one of the Twins, gesturing towards the obviously-guilty Suoh. It was just like the prince to slip and fall into the controls of the wave pool, though it was unsafe business practice to have it out in the open where anyone could fall into it. A proper business should be idiot-proof.

"Hey!" Cried the moron prince in a high voice. His face was flushed with guilt and offense, but he shook it off quickly. Suddenly, he was the brave general, leading the battalion. "Gentlemen, we're going after Honey-senpai! Cha-arge!"

The group, with the exception of Ootori and Masae, went running in the direction Suoh set out in, but were quickly blocked by a horde of alligators. They ran in the other direction and met more alligators. A third direction: alligators.

"Those alligators belong to the park's tropical animals exhibit," explained Ootori. He didn't seem especially stressed out by the legal nightmare he had on his hands. "I suppose it is a bit unsafe to allow them to roam around."

"You think so?" Masae scoffed. She looked up at him through furrowed brows. "Why do you even have alligators? This is a spa."

Ootori positively glared at her. "Actually, it seems the cause of our present situation is the placement of the switch for the current pool; I'll have to talk with the designers about that." To the others, he called, "Thanks a lot you guys, I got a lot of great data today!"

Equal parts offended at being pawns in Ootori's safety testing and worried for Honey, the rest of the Hosts regrouped. Ootori led them to the park map, displayed by the dressing rooms, and pointed out the route he imagined Honey had been led down after the wave pool drained. He showed them a path of about eight hundred meters.

"Alright, now this is a mission of survival!" Suoh rallied his troops. "I know we can make it through this treacherous jungle in one piece– we have to! It's our sworn duty to save Honey-senpai!"

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Barely fifteen minutes passed in the jungle before Masae realized that she hated nature.

The Aoki family wasn't the outdoors sort; even when Masae's mother had been around, the closest to nature they got was a trip to a private beach, and Den was even less partial to the outdoors. Masae had never been on a roadtrip in anything less than a limo, had never stayed in anything less than a five-star hotel.

In some stroke of terrible planning, this rain forest was the real deal. It wasn't hokey and plastic like the other nature-themed parks Masae had been to, it was very much a forest. There was mud, and bugs chirping in the undergrowth, and presumably wild animals.

Masae ached to ask Ootori what on Earth his family had been thinking with this park, but he was busy entertaining the search. As both the brains of the operation and the only person who knew the layout of the park, his council was invaluable. Masae tried to tune him out– she was only following the others.

The head of the Ootori house was a sensible businessman as far as Masae had observed. His medical establishments were top-notch, even more so when he got into the spa business. The Ootori Group seemed to have relaxation down to a science, so why had they put a water park next to a bonafide jungle?

As Masae entertained the thought, she removed the button-up she was wearing over her bathing suit. It was regrettable, since the linen top was the only thing between her bare shoulders and the prying eyes of Tamaki Suoh, but there was sweat collecting at the small of her back that was much more pressing.