Chapter One

The Girl by the Tree

"Hey Tohru! You mind putting this outside for me?"

"Not at all!"

Tohru grabbed the blue shirt Kyou held and put it with all the rest of the wet clothes she was carrying in the basket. Kyou went back upstairs as Tohru hauled the basket outside.

"Ah! It's so sunny outside!"

Tohru smiled and began to hang all the clothes.

"Well that's all I have now. I guess it's time to wash some more clothes...Oh? Who's that girl?"

Tohru looked over by the tree in the front lawn to see a girl leaning on the tree with curly long red-orange hair down to the side ending with a curl. She was wearing a blue skirt with a blue jacket and black shirt. She was also wearing a hat with a ribbon in her hair.

"Oh my! Excuse me? Are you alright!"

Tohru ran to the girl and felt her head.

"Oh no! She has a fever! Shigure! Someone! Help!"

Shigure ran outside waving his arms in the air yelling with a book in his hands and papers with drawings on them flying all over the place.

"TOHRU! What's wrong?"

"Shigure! This girl, she's sick!"

"Oh well we can't have a poor sick, cute girl outside in the cold, cold snow now can we?"

"But Shigure...it's spring."

Shigure picked up the girl and brought her inside the house. He placed her on the bed in the extra room they had upstairs.

"She looks so familiar..."

"What was that Shigure?"

"Oh nothing! Um, Tohru? Why don't we go make some food for Yuki and Kyou. And while we're at it we can make food for this girl."

"Alright Shigure! I'll meet you in the kitchen."

With that Shigure went down to the kitchen and waited for Tohru. Tohru, in the mean time, went to get the girl a blanket. She came back and placed a warm white blanket on the girl. She then closed the door and went to the kitchen.

Shigure hopping around with his hands clasped together began to chant, "Tohru's making rice balls! Tohru's making rice balls!"

"Alright Shigure, let's get started!"

Around an hour later Yuki and Kyou got home from the store with bags of groceries in their hands.

"Sorry it took us so long to get back. If it weren't for this stupid cat we would have gotten here around 30 minutes ago..."

"Are you saying it was my fault!"

"No. Wait...Yes. Yes I am." Yuki smiled.

"Argh! You damn rat!"

"Um. Yuki? Kyou? We have a guest and she's sleeping so..."

"I'm sorry Ms. Tohru."

"Yeah. Me too."

Tohru smiled.

"Hey."

"Oh, uh. Yes Kyou?"

"Who's here?"

"Well...um. I don't know."

"You don't know! So you just grabbed some random person off the street!"

"Kyou if I may..."

Shigure popped out of the kitchen with rice all over his mouth.

Kyou whispered to himself, "No you may not."

"Tohru found the girl outside in need of help, so naturally, Tohru being the wonderful, sweet, caring person she is brought her inside and even made us all food-including food for the girl. Uh, oops. I guess I ate all of it! Ha!"

"You stupid dog! You ate all of it!"

"Oh, it's alright Kyou. I can make some more."

Tohru ran to the kitchen. Yuki and Kyou both stared at Shigure.

"Ok, why are you both staring at me like that?"

After a long pause...

"Shigure, you annoy me."

With that Kyou went to help Tohru in the kitchen.

"Shigure?"

"Yes Yuki?"

"Where is this girl now?"

"She's in the guest room, and let me tell you, she looks awfully familiar."

Yuki began to walk upstairs.

"Yuki! Where are you going?"

"I'm going to see her."

Shigure sat down and smiled.