Chapter 1

For as long as Tohru could remember, she had a secret.

She could see ghosts.

The only people who knew of this secret where her mother, Kyoko, and her two best friends, Uo and Hana.

At first it was a big shock for her. She found out she had this gift by one day just walking down the street with her mother, when someone walking down the road opposite her suddenly stopped and stared at her. That's all they did, just stare. This freaked her out. So she turned to her mum and told her about the person across the road, but when her mother turned back to her, she said, 'I can't see anyone darling, there is no one there.'

But Tohru could still see the man looking at her, the look was that of someone in pain.

So Tohru did the only thing she could think of doing. Being the kind-hearted person that she is, she walked over the man and asked him what was wrong.

'Y-you mean y-you can s-see me?' the man stuttered.

'Of course I can, but for some reason my mother can't, do you know why that is?' Tohru replied.

'Uhm … that is because I am a ghost … and no one is meant to be able to see me,' the ghost said, with a bit more confidence in him.

'What? A – a ghost? But why is it that I can see you? I have never seen ghosts before, you are the first I have ever seen.' Tohru replied, confusing filling her question and statements.

'I must be only now that your gift has begun to take affect. Don't worry though, there are other people around the world that can see us as well, not only you.'

'Oh … okay, thank you for telling me this, but may I ask you one more question? Why were you staring at me just a minute ago?'

'Honey, who are you talking to? There is no one there.' Kyoko shouted from a distance.

'Oh, mum, hold on a sec, I will explain in a minute. I have just got to get this question answered, then I will be back over there.' Tohru shouted back to her mum. Then she turned back to the ghost, 'Uhm … so why were you staring at me a minute ago?'

'Oh, uh, that was because of two reasons. One being that it looked like when you was looking over at me, I could sense that you could see me, and I was trying to see if it was true or not. The other reason was because … uhm … was because you kinda remind me of someone I used to know before I died.'

'Oh, really, who is that?'

'You look a lot like my wife when we first met. It kinda caught me off guard seeing that image again. I am sorry if I scared you.'

'Oh, no, its okay, I was just wondering. Well thank you for telling me about my gift, I better get going now, or mum will start to worry. Thanks again, bye.' Tohru turned to leave with a wave at the ghost then headed back to her mum, who was staring at her with a confused expression on her face.

'Tohru, can you please tell me what is going on?' Kyoko asked , staring at her daughter.

'Uhm mum, I don't know if you are going to believe me, but it turns out I can apparently see ghosts. I was just talking to one a second ago, and he explained to me a bit about it.' Tohru pointed towards the spot where she just was at with the ghost. Then she turned back to her mum and added, 'and I am telling you the truth, I promise, I am not going crazy.'

At this statement, Kyoko just burst into laughter. Tohru stared at her mum wondering if she thought Tohru was crazy or if her mum was going crazy herself.

Kyoko calmed herself down in a few minutes and said to her daughter, 'I know you are not going crazy Tohru, and I believe you. I just didn't know it would take this long for your gift to start coming through.'

It was Tohru's turn to look at her mum with a confused look on her face. 'What do you mean mum, you knew I was going to be able to see ghosts at some point in my life but expected it to be sooner? How can you know that?'

'Uh, I guess I never told you about my mum being able to see ghosts did I.' Tohru shook her head. 'Well she could, and she told me before I left home that it was possible that if I was to have a child that it would be able to as well, but it would come at an early age, like hers did. So that is why I am confused.'

'Oh, so this is normal for me then? And I am not just loosing my mind?'

'No, no, no, no, darling. This is fine and it will not make one bit of difference to your life at all. So how about we go home and have a hot chocolate. It looks like it is about to rain.' Kyoko pointed out.

'Yea, okay then, you can tell me more at home.' Tohru agreed with a big smile on her face, looking as if nothing had happened.

A couple of weeks later, Kyoko and Tohru decided to tell Tohru's two best friends, Uo and Hana, about her special gift. This made Tohru nervous, because she didn't know how they were going to react. 'Even though Hana has a gift, they still might think of me as weird and not want to be my friends any more,' Tohru thought to herself before they arrived. When they told them, Tohru was thrilled to find that they didn't care and still thought of her as the same Tohru that they knew and loved.

'It doesn't matter that you can see ghosts, Tohru. It just means that your special.' Hana told her.

'Yea, but it must be way cool seeing things that no one else can see. Now I'm jealous of you and Hana, you both have cool gifts and I'm boring,' Uo replied with fake sadness in her voice, before laughing.

So time went the same for Tohru, her mother and her friends. That was until a couple of months later. That was when Tohru's mum was in a car accident and died later in hospital.

This crushed both Tohru's and her friends hearts as they loved her as if she was their own mother.

Tohru tried to not let this affect her, but she kept on wondering if she was going to see her mum one day as a ghost, just walking the streets like the man.

This never happened. She never saw her mum after the accident. Tohru was both happy and sad about this. Sad because she wanted to see her mum again, but happy because if she did, it might make her more sad then she already was.

After a couple of months, Tohru moved into the Sohma house, after meeting Yuki and Shigure in her tent in the forest. From that point on, she discovered that the Sohma's had a secret too, they were cursed with the animals of the zodiac, and if they were ever hugged by a member of the opposite sex, or their bodies were under a great deal of stress, they would transform into one of the 13 animals.

She promised to keep the secret forever, and so far she has kept that promise, but she never told the Sohma's about her own little secret. She decided to keep that between her, Uo and Hana, as a way of remembering her mum.

About a year after living with the Sohma's, Akito, the head of the Sohma family died of a heart attack. Even though it made them sad, the Sohma's were secretly happy about this because now they could live their lives the way they wanted to and love who they wanted to.

This brings us to the present day. It was a typical Saturday morning like any other. Tohru was in the kitchen making breakfast, Kyo and Yuki were having and argument in the living room and Shigure was just waking up.

At breakfast while everyone was eating, Shigure cleared his throat to start talking.

'Well, as you know, now we can live our lives the way we want to because of Akito being dead and all, so I have made a decision that affects all of us.' Shigure started.

'Oh god, what have you done now you stupid dog. Gone and got yourself engaged?' Kyo laughed at the last statement he made.

'No, I am happy living the single life for as long as possible, thank you very much. No, what I am trying to say is that we are moving.'

Kyo, Yuki and Tohru all froze in place at this sudden announcement.

'Now, you have the choice if you want to come with me or not, but I am hoping you say yes, because the house is big enough for all 4 of us and a couple of guest rooms. I have enrolled you all in the local school there on the off chance that you would say yes. Tohru, if you say yes, you can see your grandfather at anytime you want, and your friends so that you will not be unhappy. So what do you all say?' Shigure grinned at the rest waiting for their reply.

'Wow, you have thought of everything haven't you Shigure? Well, I think it would be a good opportunity, so I say yes to going. Thank you Shigure.' Yuki stated his reply straight away.

'If the rat is going then I'm not.' Kyo replied straight after Yuki finished.

'Oh, come on Kyo, it will be fun, and a good opportunity to meet new people. I would love to come Shigure, thank you so much.' Tohru said with an smile that was as big as Shigure's.

'Oh, fine. But only because Tohru is going. I wouldn't have come if it was just me, the dog and the rat. That would have been worse then going to hell.' Kyo shouted back.

'Great, well you better start packing then because we leave in two days. Don't worry about everything, we can buy more when we get to our new home.' Shigure got up to walk into his office.

Kyo, Yuki and Tohru headed to the stairs to start with their packing.

'Uhm, Shigure, where exactly are we moving too?' Yuki asked, halfway up the stairs.

'Oh, yea forgot to mention that. We are moving to Karakura Town, about a 1-2 hour drive from here.' Shigure replied before heading back to his office.