Bonjourno! Hey! My third proper furuba fic! I hope you guys all enjoy it. It took me ages to come up with the storyline, and I hope it's original and shall make all Yukiru fans squee to their hearts' delight!

Just as a brief note; I tried to do a lot of different things with this fic, like Kyo and Yuki's rivalry is still mentioned but they don't fight anymore, and It is an AU fic, soit is set in a fantasy world, with a lot of little features I hope you'll notice and like. So on with the fic! I love you readers! And to anyone who has read DFruits Basket Does Phantom… Kyo rocks as The Phantom! (Not wanting to praise my own ideas of course… Heh heh…)

Oh yeah, and to the heartfelt regret that shall sit in the bttom of my heart till I am old and withered, and festers in the pits of my soul (Soul's have pits? What a weird expression..) I do not own Fruits Basket.

Well, here it goes, we shall begin.

First Rain

Chapter One: The Fly

Tohru smiled and closed her eyes happily as she breathed in the cold air of her 17th winter. She held two small bags in her hands, and when she released the breath, she opened her eyes and looked again upon the palace. Her new home. And it was Spectacular.

She had previously lived as a maid in a wealthy Sohma household, working for a relative of the five Princes of Sohma, but she had never before been to the Country's capital. After fighting her way politely but firmly through the crowds of ambitious and forceful residents of Akitaeo, she had finally found herself at the palace gates. She now looked in awe upon the glittering domes and towers that seemed to be growing from the roves of the colossal building.

With one more steady intake of breath, she began to walk. She paced carefully down the first main gravel path, passing box hedges and fountains, occaisionally glancing at the building ahead of her, counting the windows, doors, and servants she could see working. She gulped as she realised she would soon be one of them.

Finally she reached the towering palace doors, and placed one of her small bags on the floor so she could knock.

There was no answer.

At first she thought she hadn't knocked loud enough, and considered trying again, but as she lifted up her wrist and clenched fist once more, she found the huge doors creaking open infront of her.

She was met with the smile of a blonde boy just a little shorter than she was, who was having some difficulty pulling open the doors which were about fifty times his size.

Tohru walked reluctantly through them, and the blonde realised there was no need to keep letting the cold air in. He started to push the doors closed again, with even more of a trial than he'd had trying to open them.

Seeing this, Tohru took the other door, dropping both bags on the floor.

"Y-you must be… The…. New girl!" Grunted the boy, smiling at Tohru.

"Y-yes-" she would have said more, but the door suddenly loosened it's grip on what seemed to be the floor, and slammed shut, sending her plummeting into it. Before she could pick herself up, the same thin g happened to the small boy, and they were both panting as they leant into the heavy mahogany doors. "M-my name's Tohru Honda. Pleased to… Meet you!" She laughed in her apologetic manner.

The boy smiled. "My name's Momiji Sohma."

"M-Momi-… As in the Prince?"

"Uh-huh." Momiji's smile got wider as the girl panicked and fell to her knees in a bow.

"S-sorry I didn't know you were-"

"Hey, it's OK… I didn't expect you to know!"

Momiji showed the panic-stricken maid around, and introduced her to the rest of the palace staff. There were only very brief introductions, and Tohru found it very hard to memorize any names, seen as everyone was rushing around trying to get things done.

Tohru also had a hard time concentrating, on account of the surroundings she found herself in. There was at least one chandelier in every room. The floors were so clean she could see her own reflection in them. There were portraits of past Royals on the walls, and the ceilings stretched up to what seemed like miles. She had thought her old employer's estate was wealthy, but she found herself being blown over with every new sight in this place. Well it is the palace of Akitao, I suppose…

Finally she was being told what to do, instead of being invited. One of the senior staff whisked her away from the side of Prince Momiji, who had been treating her like the royalty ever since she arrived, which as she observed on one of the towering Grandfather clocks in one of the halls, was only half an hour ago.

She was told that she had to start cleaning the rooms on the third floor, and that her bags and possessions would be taken to her room. She was then handed an apron, and practically pushed up the stairs.

She put on the apron as she climbed the spiralling marble stairs. Apparently she was going to receive a proper uniform but it hadn't been made yet. Instead she was still wearing the clothes she had arrived in, which was a mid-length brown skirt and a white shirt with sleeves that kept getting caught in any slight breeze and billowed out in many inconvenient directions.

After cleaning four of the rooms along the corridor (Which was about 12 yards wide) and being once again physically knocked over by the sheer size and decadence of the rooms, she came to the fifth.

For some reason she had a premonition as she stood in front of the door. Perhaps it was the fact that the door looked slightly newer than the others, as if it hadn't been used very often… Or the fact that the door had strange gold leaf patterns around it's dark mahogany frame. (Most of the wood used in the palace of Akitao was made of mahogany, on account of the specific trees that grew in the surrounding forests.)

She wasn't sure whether her premonition was a good or bad one, but she was sure that something would change as soon as she opened that door.

Nevertheless, knowing that it was her job, and that she didn't want to screw up in a fancy place like this, she reluctantly leaned on the door, and pushed it open.

To her surprise, she found that un like the other rooms she had cleaned, this one was not vacant.

There was a boy, with greyish hair and large grey eyes, wearing the same sort of clothes as Momiji, standing on the large bed. He was holding a large book, and appeared to be looking at a fly that had flown in through a crack in the wooden window covers that blocked out the light of the room.

He was moving away in panic whenever the fly came near him or the bed he was standing on. He was too transfixed by the miniscule insect to notice Tohru, but she half was glad for it, seen as she was also transfixed by him. This boy -Who appeared to be another Prince of Akitao-… Was he really afraid of a fly?

"Um…" Tohru tried to break the silence. (That is, if you don't count the buzzing of the creature that was the centre of all of this interest.) "Uh… Do, do you need any help here, sir?"

The boy looked up. It was only then that she saw how big his grey eyes really were. And the fact that he was obviously terrified didn't make them look any smaller.

"I… That, is, what, I mean… You… What is that thing?" He gestured towards the fly, still looking at Tohru, and flinched, jumping about a footing the air as it landed on his outstretched hand.

"D-don't tell me you've never seen… You must have seen a fly before!" Tohru said, as she cautiously approached the boy, who was staring into black form of the large fly that was slowly starting to crawl up his slender wrist and get lost in the folds of his shirt cuffs.

She carefully placed her fingers around the fly, and lifted it off his trembling wrist. She then walked over to the window.

"W-what are you-" Before he could finish, she had opened the painted wood covers, and flung open the window.

She put her hand to the window, and the fly waited for a second before flying away. As she started to turn around, she was almost knocked over by the Prince, who had leapt off his bed and was now staring out of the window in awe. His eyes looked even wider than before. She looked at him in puzzlement, and then in concern as a tear dripped silently down from his overflowing grey eyes.

"What… What is that…?"

"What?" Tohru watched as he looked towards the clouds.

"That… Blue ceiling… With the white paint on it."

"I, I don't really know what you mean." The boy smiled, yet he never took his eyes off the window. " I, I guess I'll come back later."

As she turned to leave, she took one last glance at the boy. She had never had much experience with princes before, and the two encounters she had already had in one morning were both very different. The second was definitely more puzzling though.

As she worked on what seemed like the other hundreds of rooms along that corridor, which was on the top floor– apart from the attic- it was impossible to concentrate with the mysterious and anonymous Prince in her mind. He was so strange. Until she had opened the window it had been very dark, so she hadn't really had a proper look at him, seen as the moment she opened the window he hadn't turned away from it to look at her. The only feature that had really stood out were his eyes; those two pools of grey that stared at her in bewilderment, and almost fear at something as miniscule and common as a little fly.

She considered asking another staff-member whether he was a prince or not, but she had a feeling she wasn't supposed to be going into the rooms of royalty anyway. She probably would have been more polite if she didn't think he was a little crazy. But he hadn't seemed to notice.

"Haru!" As Tohru traipsed down the stairs in an exhausted daze, she saw Momiji run across the polished marble floor at the main hall, and into the arms of a tall, white-haired boy. She stopped on the stairs and smiled. Momiji saw her looking, and waved at her, still clinging onto who must have been Haru.

"Who's this?" Said the white-haired one, holding onto Momiji's shoulder and looking at Tohru. She blushed. He was very good looking.

"This is Tohru." Said Momiji. And then he whispered, "She's the new-girl." Haru flicked him on the head.

"Um, pleased to meet you." She bowed, hoping he wasn't another prince.

"Haru is another Prince." Said Momiji. Tohru sighed inwardly. She was having a very awkward day.

"My name is Hatsuharu Sohma, and the pleasure is all mine." He bowed even lower than she had, and came up smiling. "So, when does your shift finish?"

"Sh-shift? I, I don't know…"

"Oh, well, you can end it now then. " He smiled at her once more. "We need someone to hang out with. Everyone else is about twice our age. And you'll need to get adjusted, right?"

Thru stuttered for about five minutes, until she finally got the words out. "Th- Thankyou very much, I'd love t-to." Haru and Momiji smiled at her, and she joined them downstairs.

By the time they had left the hall, night had already fallen on the palace.

Tohru sighed deeply as she settled herself in a large armchair in the Princes' special private living room, which had books spread all over the never-ending walls, and a huge fireplace that had been lit. Perhaps Hatsuharu and Momiji could give her some answers.