Tohru Honda has had it rough growing up. She has recently become an orphan when her mother dies in a car accident. Later on, she moves in with her grandfather, but decides to move out and take care of herself so as to not put much of a strain on her grandfather. This leads to her living in a tent in the forest and working a night job as a custodian to support herself. Throughout all of her hardships, she remains optimistic.
One day, everything gets turned upside down when she notices a house in the forest where a classmate of hers named Yuki Sohma and his cousin, Shigure Sohma, reside. After their meeting, everything seems to be going well until the Sohmas find out that she has been living in a tent. She finds out that the entire area is property to the Sohmas and she asks if she may be allowed to stay in her tent on their property, but, unfortunately for her, she faints from a fever. To make matters worse, a landslide buries her tent, along with the picture of her mother and her school uniforms.
They move her in to their house for the night, and dug out what they could from the landslide. When she wakes up, they tell her what’s happened to her tent. Getting tired of fast food and a filthy house, Shigure asks her if she would like to become a permanent guest of the house, as long as she cooks and cleans. She accepts the offer and is shown to her room. Everything seems to be going fine until Yuki’s other cousin, Kyo, bursts into the room and challenges him. Before they even start to fight, Tohru grabs Kyo and something… weird happens. In place of Kyo is an orange cat. She then gets hit on the head by a plank of wood, falls on Yuki and Shigure, and they turn into a rat and a dog. She soon discovers that the Sohmas family secret is that when they are touched by the opposite sex, they turn into the Zodiac sign that they are possessed by. What’s a girl to do with such a secret? Check out Fruits Basket at the library to find out!
