Hey there ^_^ Fruits Basket is one of my favorite mangas/animes of all time (the anime needs a second season! :O) –it's made me cry so many times! Especially when I saw episode 17, when Kisa first appeared. I cry every time I see that scene with Tohru, Kisa, and her mom. It's one of the sweetest scenes I've ever seen and makes me wish there were more people like Tohru in real life, lol.

Anyway, they never really explained much of Kisa's backstory of before she appeared, or what happened after, so this is basically in Kisa's perspective trying to figure out why she shut herself down. I'll probably also write her POV when she meets Tohru and goes back to school and everything and stay in-universe with the actual story. I think with Kisa, since she talks so little and most of her character development goes on internally, it would be interesting to at least try to write her perspective.

I also have so much sympathy for her so once I got back into writing fanfics I knew I had to write about her... This is also my first Fruits Basket fic and I finished the series a couple years ago so if anything is glaringly wrong or inconsistent please tell me, and of course I love reviews :)

Ok please enjoy :)

I shook my head as my mother walked into my room that morning , yet again, and coughed.

She sighed and understood- once again, I was 'sick' and couldn't go to school. It's been weeks since I've been to class. I'm sure she believed me the first couple of days or so, when the nurse found me lying on the floor in the hallway at school, and assumed I'd passed out.

We both know that- thanks to my curse- that couldn't have been true- but she must have figured something was wrong with me, since she gave me warm tea and insisted I rest all day. But 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, 2 weeks…

At some point she had to have figured out I'm not that sick, or I'm sure she would've taken me to the hospital or gotten me a flu shot. Every day she sits in my room and sits here and sits

next to me trying to get me to speak.

"Kisa… Kisa, tell me what's wrong. Why won't you go to school? What's wrong with you?"

What's wrong with me?

Everything, I suppose.

Everything, according to every last one of classmates, and probably Sensei, too. I can't do well in schoolwork, I can't make a single friend, no matter how hard I try, not a single person in my class gave me a chance. Even Hiro thinks I'm too much of a loser to be seen with anymore. Even among members of the zodiac ourselves, I'm the outsider, the weird, awkward one best avoided. No one even talks to me except Hatsuharu , and even him not so much.

I've tried everything to get them to stop. I've responded politely, how I should? No?

Yes, that's my natural hair color… Why should I lie about it?

I didn't want to have to be mean to them. Weren't these my future friends? I thought they were joking, that at some point, someone would put her arm around me and tell me they were all just kidding, and I didn't want to overreact and be made fun of for real and prevent that dream, that was hopeless from the start, from ever happening.

Now at least I know for sure: I am a doll to them, a toy to push and prod for their amusement and see what it'll pop out… Not for one second did those girls ever intend to be friends with me. From the second I walked into that class on the first day, I got the stares.

Every head turned to look at me, stare me down. I started sweating anxiously. My first day of middle school, I was already nervous enough at this new, huge, confusing school, but two steps into the classroom and I felt my stomach drop as the eyes followed me to my seat.

But in those first few minutes, I still had hope. It was just because I was late! Of course! I would probably be looking too, if one lone kid strolled in a little late. Even by-…2 minutes.

"Kisa Sohma, is it?"

"Yes?"

"Try to get here on time. This isn't elementary anymore. You'll get a detention next time."

"Um, yes, ma'am," I tried to sound respectful, but I couldn't get my eyes off the floor, trying to avert the stares of everyone around me. I heard one boy snicker.

Lunch that day was the first time anyone actually talked to me…

"Kisa?"

Back to today. I wish Mom would just leave me alone. I shake my head again. Why won't she understand? Get my little message that I don't want her here questioning me , again and again the same exact thing, questions I can't answer.

"Why won't you go to school, Kisa? You're missing out on your studies. Every day you miss, you're making it harder on yourself."

My eyes widen. I didn't even think much of that, honestly. It's funny how, at least these days, most kids don't even think of school as a place you go to learn anymore. It seems to be the last thing on anyone's mind there.

Mom leans her hand toward me, and I expect her to put it on my forehead to check for a fever, but instead she lays it on my cheek.

"Please…Tell your mom, at least, what's wrong?"

I can't help it- tears well up in my eyes and I feel my stomach drop-that same feeling- I have to turn away.

What is WRONG with you?!

I cannot even speak to my own mother. That is how pathetic I have become. She tries to care, but after a couple seconds of my lack of response, she makes a remark about how I'm only causing trouble to everyone around me for no reason and nearly slams my bedroom door on her way out. Good. I didn't want her in here to watch me cry again, anyway, trying to guess why. I wrap my fluffy , warm pink sheets around me like a cocoon, safe from the rest of the world. Letting my head sink into the pillow , dampening from my tears.

Can I least be safe here?

I like it here in my bed. At least here, only Mom bugs me, and sometimes Dad. That's about 23 less people than at school. And as long as I stay silent, she'll never figure it out from my face alone. Momiji says parents of possessed children are either overprotective or completely reject their child. Mom is certainly the first, at least for right now.

Here in my bed, I can read a book or play games and enjoy my own presence, lay in this soft comfy bed with the sunlight from the window pouring down on me. Mostly I just think and sleep. I can be safe here from those knowing stares and those horrible, shrieking giggles and those cruel words. I can pretend none of them exist, and stay in here avoiding them, missing more and more as each day passes. Every day that I spend in my room is another set of teases avoided.

How long is it until the first semester ends? Only about 2 more months. I wouldn't mind staying here but…That sounds like a really long time before the break. And even then I'll still have to go back to the same school for 2 more…Years…I would rather not think about that.

Transfer?

Mom will never let me hear the end of it. How many problems I'm creating, what is wrong with you, we can work it out. No, I can't.

And it could go so many ways: It can start all over again, only with new faces and new names. The same thing all over again.

Or maybe people in this other school are nice! And I could try all over again and be better! It's possible, isn't it?

But I can't do that to my parents. I can't give them a reason. So no.

I bury my head further into the pillow. I can stay here forever if it means staying away.

When I finally wake up from my nap, a bento box Mom must have made me sits beside my bed. Must be lunchtime. Hours blend away when I spend my day in bed. 12 becomes 1 becomes 2 and I am still just here.

1:24 PM, my clock says. So they're at lunch at school now, too. At this very moment, everyone's eating and chatting in the classroom, pushing their desks together to form little social groups, except the one in the very corner at the very back. So I guess not much has changed.

My empty desk is still sitting there all by itself, watching people turn to stare at it, then whisper and laugh far too loudly to each other. Getting kicked by the occasional student who passes.

I cringe at knowing, in the back of head, that my parents will not let me stay here forever.

My door opens- Dad must have come home from lunch. He hugs me, scolds me. "Kisa, you can't stay in here forever. You have to study to get into a good high school, a good university, and years ahead, get a job. You're not going to make anything of yourself staying in this room."

Maybe I'll win the lottery and I can afford to just stay in here forever. And dad's wrong. I know the Sohma family gives them a lot of money. I can stay here for a really long time and it won't even matter to anyone! Why do they have to pretend it does? The worst that's happening is that no one at school gets to use me to feel better about themselves. What a terrible thing for them to have to go without.

"I don't like that your mother is letting you waste your life in here," he says, putting his hand on my forehead.

"You're going to school again starting Monday," he says firmly.

He has decided for me? I guess they think that because I don't say anything, it means I'm just a robot who will do whatever anyone wishes. I am a being without feelings of my own.

How is it that I am the tiger?

I turn away until he, too, loses patience and leaves my room, and I look out my window. I only see the tree in my backyard blowing gently in the wind. I hear a car passing by.

How nice it would be to have my own car. I could get in and drive away and tell my mom I'm going to school, and my parents will smile at how I'm doing what I'm supposed to, and then I could go to the park and sleep and no one at all will bother me. Of course, I'm only 12.

But I do have a bike. And I have my legs. Right now, I can just run out of here and do whatever I want. I can leave, I can go to the station right now and go to the park or the stores or just walk around town. But Mom would never let me so much as walk out of the door without an adult by my side. Sohma parents, of course.

…I also could've just run away all those times at school. But they'd only laugh more. Where are you going? Sensei, Kisa's ditching school! Haha, What's wrong with that girl? Or worse, give me that terrible cold stare, the one they use to judge my every action. And where would I go, anyway? My life is either here or school.

I'm still staring out the window, at this whole world outside. I used to play with my friends on that very tree. Hiro and I would always see who could climb up the fastest, and we'd sit in the branches and talk about building a clubhouse and putting in all this crazy stuff like a TV and video games, just as a cool place to hide away from everyone else listening and hang out and have fun.

I don't know why I bothered being nostalgic, because once again the depression sets into my brain as I remember all my ignored phone calls to Hiro. At first I fooled myself into thinking he must just be busy, until once I finally decided to stop by his house with my mom.

I knocked and knocked, and I saw my mom staring to her left. I followed her gaze just in time to see Hiro's face for a half a second as he closed the blinds right in front of my face. My cheeks had burned that not only had he decided to completely reject me, my mom was also there to see it.

He must have heard. He's not in my class, but surely he's seen how they treat me. He knows that I am the reject and simply followed suit. I shouldn't blame him.

Yet still it is his exclusion that causes my heart to sink the most. Not even my former friend who should care. Not even him. The people in my class, at least they never knew me before I became a loser. Hiro did.

Where , how can I find the point where exactly this all began? What caused me to go from a happy girl who talked to friends at lunch about our favorite TV shows and how fun middle school would be, to my happiest place being encased in sheets all alone?

When was the exact time everyone decided I am a failure?

I'm not sure exactly what changed between then and now to make people think so differently of me, but I do know that it all started that first day at lunch…