This story is a Christmas fic that I had written for one of my friends. After much deliberation and sleepless nights I finally decided to make this available for everyone to read.

Disclaimer: No I do not own Fruits Basket.


This story is dedicated to Kristine

"Kyo, look, it's snowing", a soft spoken brown haired girl exclaimed from her perch at her window.

The object of her attention, a skinny orange haired boy, looked up from the kitchen table, where he was currently working on homework, to glance out the window.

'She gets so excited about the simplest things', he thought to himself.

He closed his school books, coming up with an idea.

"You wanna go outside and play in it, don't you? It's no fun just watching it through the window."

Her eyes lit up at the thought, "Oh, can we?"

A sudden thought came to mind and her expression sank momentarily, "Shouldn't we wait for Shigure and Yuki, though?"

Kyo growled under his breath at her reminder of the house's other inhabitants,

"No, I really don't think we need to wait." 'I'll drop dead before I wait on that damned rat.' "Shigure is at the main house again and the rat is probably still at school."

"Well, if you think it's okay... I really want to build a snowman. I haven't made one since I was little."

They put on their coats, shoes, and gloves and went outside. Tohru was a little nervous about going out in the cold. It had really been a long time since she got to go out and really have fun in the snow.

'Usually I work a lot this time of year because of Christmas but this year is different.'

This year, because of all the hard work she'd spent at her job, they surprised her with a couple of gift certificates. She had a chance to take a couple days off. This year it actually snowed when she was off work and she was more excited than she wanted to admit.

Kyo led her out the door and brought her out into the winter wonderland that was right outside their front door.

"Look Kyo", she spoke excitedly. "Isn't it pretty?"

'Not as pretty as you are', he thought to himself.

"Yeah, it is."

She knelt down as he spoke to play with a little bit of snow just beginning to accumulate by the doorway and didn't notice the reddening cheeks that would give away his unspoken thoughts. He watched her from the doorway as she walked tentatively through the snow, reaching down every couple of steps to touch something else snow covered.

'She must really like the snow', he mused. 'Unlike me.'

The teen, being the 'cursed' cat from the Chinese zodiac, never held a fondness of water in any form. Snow, he didn't mind too much but like all the Sohma members cursed with this form before him, water was never something he tolerated for very long. Smiling, he walked out into the snow anyway, and reached down to form a small snowball with one hand.

"Hey, Tohru."

"Yes, Kyo?"

Turning around to look at him, she was surprised when a snowball hit her in the face.

"Wha?"

He ran toward the girl sitting in the snow that was now trying to wipe the remainder of the snow from her eyes.

"Tohru, I'm sorry", he apologized. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to hit you in the face."

He took the sleeve of his coat and began to help her wipe the remaining bits of snow from her face.

'I'm such an idiot!'

Shivering, she turned her red face up towards the worried boy, and smiled, "It's okay, I'm fine. You don't need to be worried about me. You just surprised me, that's all."

Feeling guilty about what just happened, he helped her up, and was about to help her back to the door when she stopped.

"Tohru?"

"I want to build a snowman first, please."

Of course, with her being who she was, there was no way he could turn her down especially after what just happened.

"What kind do you want to make?"

"Hmmm", she chewed her lower lip nervously, trying to decide what to make. "How about a snowcat?"

He smiled at her tenderly and told himself, 'I keep forgetting that she's the zodiac cat's #1 fan.'

He let her lead him to a spot where they could work on the cat and he watched as she formed small snowballs to form the cat's body. Suddenly, she stopped, waiting on something. She looked up at him expectantly.

"Kyo, don't you want to help make it?"

"Sure."

They sat in a little huddle around the unfinished snowcat, the two slowly molding the snowballs into the shape of a sitting cat. While they were just finishing up, they noticed that the snow had started to fall a little harder and decided that maybe it was time to go back inside.

'We can always finish it later.'

They headed back to the house, keeping to the areas that they'd walked already. Stepping on a slick spot anyway, Tohru slipped and was headed for the ground. However, Kyo was close by and caught her by her arms, preventing her from hitting the ground.

"Careful, clumsy", Kyo said with a laugh.

Blushing profusely, Tohru thanked him for 'saving' her and they continued their trek back to the house. Not noticing their joined hands or even the blushes that had spread across both their faces, they took off their shoes at the door and went inside. Even if they hadn't noticed all that had just occurred, the dog of the zodiac had. He'd come up just as the scene from a few moments past had unfolded. With an evil gleam in his eye, he contemplated whether he would tease the two mercilessly, and walking back to the house carefully only one thing remained in his mind.

'Well, wasn't that cute.'