Chiyo stepped through the hallway cautiously. They were all empty, as class had already started, but she felt awkward there nonetheless. She had come from a school much smaller than the one she was walking through now, it was much more intimidating to know there was more people. So many strangers all against her.

She finally found the right room and knocked lightly on the wood. Too lightly, she thought and went to knock again, but the door slid open. Chiyo looked around the adult standing in her way. She could see over twenty pairs of eyes staring at her, watching her distrustfully and menacingly.

"You must be the new student!" The man in front of her said and beckoned her to step inside, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Miss Chiyo Tomori. Please welcome her into our school." He said to the class and told her to take the only seat left, which was at the very back beside the window. She felt each and every eye in the room watching her as she walked to her new seat. Chiyo watched everything that went on outside the window beside her, which wasn't much. Every once in a while she would see some one turn and look at her through the corner of her eye. She felt terrified every time, but she did her best to ignore them.

Break time finally came and she slipped her little lunch box out and began eating. She somewhat crouched over her desk and flinched slightly at each person to walk by her. Eventually, a boy came up to her and greeted her with a smile. She looked up at him slowly.

"Hello! I'm Yuki Soma. I just wanted to welcome you to our class." He said in a quiet voice. Chiyo knew there had to be something else to the greeting.

"Uh … Thank you." She said politely and went back to eating. But not a second later, another student came and stood beside him. This one was a girl. She saw Yuki was trying to say hello to the Chiyo. So she turned and greeted Chiyo as well.

"I'm Tohru Honda. I hope you like it here!"

"Um … Hello … Tohru." Chiyo said to the girl, and after she didn't look away or ignore them. She looked between both of them, trying to figure out if they actually were plotting against her or if this was the kindness some people had, like her grandmother had told her.

"I was actually wondering earlier if you'd like to come to our house for supper." Tohru asked shyly and Yuki's face lit up slightly.

"That would be wonderful! Miss Honda is a great cook."

"I don't know ..." Chiyo muttered.

"Do your parents not like you going to stranger's houses?" Tohru wondered, thinking she had made Chiyo feel bad by being inconsiderate.

"No … I just … don't want to be a bother..."

"Don't worry, it's no problem for me! And I wouldn't Yuki or his family would mind either, right?"

"Of course not. I think my cousin would actually like the new company."

"Um... I guess I'll come then." Chiyo said, but she really didn't want to, she knew they would do something, something to hurt her in any way they could.

"Great! Then we'll see you when class is over." Tohru said and returned to her friends.

Tohru sat in the seat next to Arisa, happy with herself. "That girl is really shy." Arisa said as she looked at Tohru's new friend.

"Yes," Saki said, "And I'm sensing odd electrical waves coming from her."

"What do you mean by 'odd'?" Tohru asked her friend, puzzled.

"They're similar to Yuki and Kyo's electrical waves, but still quite different."

I wonder if she's some how related to Yuki and Kyo, Tohru thought, Maybe that was why Yuki was the first one to talk to her.

Chiyo walked quietly beside Yuki, Tohru and Yuki's cousin, Kyo, who was also in their class. The boys kept arguing with each other once every few minutes, it almost became violent a few times. Chiyo also noticed that they kept calling each other "stupid cat" and "damn rat" which she thought was a bit odd, unless it was just her.

They reached a house surrounded by trees after some time. Tohru opened the door for Chiyo and they all took their shoes off when they stepped inside.

"Shigure! We're home!" Tohru said as she stepped into the house a little further. A man appeared from around the corner.

"Oooh, I was starting to feel lonely, wondering when you'd be coming home." The man said, a bit dramatically, Chiyo thought.

"Maybe the same time we always come back at! And don't you write while we're gone?" Kyo yelled.

The man ignored him and spotted Chiyo. He shuffled over to her with a creepy grin, "And who is this?"

"Oh, I almost forgot! Shigure, this is Chiyo. She's a new classmate of ours. And Chiyo, this is Shigure." Tohru explained.

"A new classmate? Let me guess, Tohru wanted to have you for supper to make you feel welcome, right?" Shigure chuckled. Chiyo nodded. "If you want to, you can call your parents and we'll all have dinner together!" He cheered, he was too enthusiastic for Chiyo.

"My parents are dead." Chiyo said and everyone turned to look at her awkwardly.

"Oh, uhm … I'm sorry if I offended you at all."

"No, it's alright. There's no way you could have known."

Tohru placed each of the bowls and plates carefully on the table then called for Yuki, Kyo and Shigure. She had talked about a lot of different things to Chiyo as she made their food. Chiyo didn't mind, just like she said whenever Tohru asked if she was boring her, but she was curious to know how they were all so cheery and enthusiastic. Yuki and Shigure joined them, but Kyo didn't appear. Shigure said not to worry about him, he would probably join them soon.

"So who do you live with? Why did you move here?" Shigure asked, he seemed to be a very nosy type of person.

Stop thinking about everything negatively, not every one has a life like you, but that doesn't mean the world is horrible and no one will understand you. Just open up a little, be nice, that's how people make friends, Chiyo thought, That's what Grandmother always told me...

"I live by myself. I've lived with my grandmother since I was little, she became sick a year or two ago and she died last month. She left me all her savings and any profits from her books." Chiyo sat up a little straighter, showing her face and took a large bite of her food, "This is really good Tohru."

"Your grandmother was a writer? I am a novelist as well!"

"Really? Grandmother loved to write about the zodiacs, and I loved all her work, especially all the stories she made just for me." Chiyo smiled to herself, thinking of the memories she still had of her grandmother, but she did notice them all look at her oddly when she said "zodiacs."

"Is your grandmother Orino Tomori?" Shigure asked excitedly.

"Yes, why?"

"She was such an inspiration when I was a teenager! I loved her work! No, I still love her work! I always felt like I related to her characters a lot."

"Did she write about the Chinese zodiac?" Tohru wondered. They were quite obsessed with zodiacs as well. Did they know her secret?

"She did write a bit about them, but her favourite to write about was always the astrological zodiacs, especially taurus and scorpio."

"Oh, I'm not very familiar with those …"

"Well, there's twelve different constellations and when the sun is in line with them or something like that, it's their time of the year. Like, I'm a scorpio, which is between October twenty-forth and November twenty-second. Then there's also Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Virgo, Aquarius, Cancer, and Pisces. Each one has different personality traits, which people who are born in their time usually posses. They are all also represented by different animals and people and things. They each also have a different element planet and such representing them, but the animals are the ones most people remember the best."

"Wow, you're quite the expert."

"My grandmother was an expert, not me." Chiyo smiled at the compliment, "Um … do you mind if I use your bathroom?"

"Of course not! It's just down the hall that way." Shigure pointed out, Chiyo nodded and stood up. She walked around the table, towards the hall, but she didn't know Kyo was walking towards her in the hall at a very fast pace. He wasn't watching where he was going and ran straight into her. She toppled over from the impact. Yuki, being the closest , jumped from his seat and caught Choyi right before she hit the ground. Chiyo opened her eyes, she looked right up at Yuki.

"Are you alright?" He asked, genuinely worried. Chiyo realized he had his arms around her enough that it should have transformed her. She squealed and rolled well away from him before sitting up. She looked down at herself.

"Oh, good, I didn't transform." She said to herself. But everyone heard her loud and clear.

"Whaddya mean by transform!" Kyo shouted.

"Oh! Are you a member of the zodiac as well? I thought so!" Tohru squeed.

"She's not a member of the zodiac! I've never even met her before! Have either of you?"

"No, I've never seen her before today."

"Me neither."

"I'm confused now..."

"Well, come on! Explain!"

Chiyo looked at each of them, feeling more and more scared and insecure. She jumped up and ran to the bathroom, kicking herself all the way for giving herself away.

When she returned, they were all sitting, waiting for her. Kyo was obviously trying very hard to not burst out. Chiyo took a seat once again.

"Care to explain yourself?" Shigure said.

"Like I said, I'm a scorpio." Chiyo put a little bit of her meal inside her mouth, not really wanting to eat, "If a member of the opposite sex hugs someone in the Tomori family, that person transforms into their zodiac." Chiyo said as if reading from a text book. "I'll turn into a scorpion if a boy outside my family hugs me. My grandmother would turn into a bull." Chiyo took another bite and recalled what Tohru had said when she fell, "Wait. What did you mean 'are you a member of the zodiac as well?'"

"Heh, well I guess it doesn't matter if we tell you. We're all in the same boat." Shigure chuckled.

"What do you mean?"

"Our family is like yours, but we turn into the Chinese zodiac animals. I'm the rat, Shigure is the dog and he is our stupid little cat." Yuki explained, "I had no idea there was another family out there like us. Did you?" He asked Shigure.

"No, but I admit when I first read your grandmother's books, I became a bit suspicious. But what about the libra and such? What would they transform into?"

"Oh … well, Saggitarius turns into an arrow and flies away, he's actually injured some one. Libra actually turns into a scale and aquarius becomes a woven basket of water. Those three are the worst to be and go to same sex schools. My twin cousins, the geminis, when some hugs just one of them they kind of like .. trade faces and bodies, but they're still themselves, if that makes sense, but they usually can convince people it's a trick they learned that only twins can do. And then virgo, so far she just stays the same, she's lucky like that. But grandmother told me that when she's older and she is hugged, she'll appear as her younger self."

"That's interesting to know." Shigure smiled.

"I still can't believe there's another family like us." Yuki muttered.

"Yes, and what's more, it seems as if we're in the same family. We won't transform each other."

"Wow! I'm starting to feel a bit left out! I'm the only one here not a member of some kind of zodiac!" Tohru giggled.

"You shouldn't be. It's not as great as you think." Kyo grumbled.

"You're just mad that you're stuck as a stupid cat for the rest of your life." Yuki teased.

"I don't think he's a stupid cat." Chiyo said. Kyo heard what she said and stopped himself from what he was going to say. Yuki lowered his head a bit, not in shame, but in acknowledgment that she was right.

"Right. That was rude of me." He said glumly.

"Are you really apologizing to Kyo?" Shigure asked.

"I never said that."

The three boys kept bickering throughout dinner. Chiyo and Tohru laughed at them and talked between themselves until it began to get dark and Chiyo insisted she had to leave before it got too dark.

"Would you like Yuki or Kyou to walk you home, it is quite dark already." Shigure offered.

"No, it's alright. I actually live fairly close to here. So it's no problem." She assured them.

"Well … at least take this," Kyo stepped forward and handed her a flashlight, "We wouldn't want you to get lost." He avoided everyone's eyes, especially hers, and blushed a little.

"Uh … Thank you, Kyo." She took the light from his hand.

Chiyo turned and left through their front door.

"Well, we certainly had an interesting evening." Shigure sighed.

"Yes, I think everyone will find this very interesting." Yuki nodded.

"Especially Kyo's reaction." Shigure teased the figure slowly making it's way up the stairs, trying very hard once again not to lose his temper.

"I don't think everyone will find it interesting."

"Yes, Akito won't be very happy at all," Shigure said as he, Yuki and Tohru watched Chiyo's shadow leave their vision, "But he doesn't have to know just yet."